Ashes of Death’: The Marshall Islands Is Still Seeking Justice for US Nuclear Tests

On March 1, 1954, a blinding flash of light in the west made it seem as though the sun was rising from the wrong side of the ocean. The sky and the sea turned red as a mushroom cloud swelled rapidly to a height of nearly 25 miles. Ash, water, and pulverized coral rained down. The people of Rongelap Atoll began to suffer from severe burns, nausea, and vomiting – symptoms of acute radiation sickness.

This was the experience of the closest witnesses to Castle Bravo, a thermonuclear weapon detonated by the United States on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands 70 years ago. The sunrise they saw was the explosion of a 15-megaton bomb, the most powerful weapon ever used by the U.S. military, 1,000 times larger than the blast that leveled Hiroshima.

On March 1, 2024, as every year, Marshallese flags were flown at half-staff in remembrance of victims and survivors of nuclear testing.

Bravo was one of 67 nuclear tests conducted by the United States in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958; the U.S. military controlled the islands from the end of World War II until 1947, when they became part of a U.S.-administered trust territory. The tests yielded as much radiation as 1.6 Hiroshima bombings every day for 12 years, and the Marshall Islands continues to suffer from their legacy – including high cancer rates, environmental degradation, and cultural dislocation – which the U.S. government has done little to redress. Nor has Washington rectified a series of its own cover-ups and human rights abuses, which still poison its relationship with the Marshall Islands.

The United States subjected the Marshallese people to scientific study without their consent; destroyed their health and their environment; lied to them about their radiation exposure; evacuated them too late, or not at all; knowingly resettled them on contaminated land; and displaced them – often indefinitely – from their homes.

Marshallese leaders have long sought fair compensation and an apology from the United States, and their position is supported by the United Nations and over 100 arms-control and environmental groups. Now, as Washington seeks to reengage in the Pacific during a new Cold War, nuclear justice has become even more essential for positive relations with the Marshall Islands and improving U.S. standing in the region.