Japan Marks U.S. Atomic Test Anniversary

[Khephra]

TOKYO -- Thousands marked the 50th anniversary Monday of a U.S. nuclear test in the Pacific that exposed Japanese fishermen to radiation, laying flowers at the grave of one of the victims and staging a protest against atomic weapons.

About 2,100 marchers carrying photographs of Aikichi Kuboyama, who died six months after the March 1, 1954, bombing, walked about a mile through his hometown in Yaizu to a ceremony at his grave, police said.

Many of the marchers, including Japanese anti-nuclear activists and representatives from the United States and the Marshall Islands, laid red roses, Kuboyama's favorite flower, said officials at the temple where his tomb is located.

They also repeated what they said was Kuboyama's dying wish: "I hope I will be the last victim of atomic and hydrogen bombing."

Kuboyama was a radio operator aboard the No. 5 Fukuryu Maru -- or Lucky Dragon -- when the United States tested a hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, in the central Pacific Ocean, exposing him and 22 other fishermen to radiation.


MORE...........

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-japan-nuclear-anniversary,0,2925454.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[tom_paine]

1. While the Imperial Family celebrated quietly today by watching

videotape of the Hirsohima and Nagasaki blasts...

[megatherium]

2. The bomb was much more powerful than expected.

The Fukuryu Maru was well outside of what was expected to be the danger zone. But the test, code-named Bravo, was three times more powerful than expected -- instead of being 5 megatons, it turned out to be 15 megatons, which I gather was the greatest yield of any US nuclear test.

[Khephra]

3. From the article:

The ship, trolling for tuna, was about 100 miles away. The bomb was some 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, historians say.

[hatrack]

4. There was a fusion reaction in lithium they didn't account for

The fireball was four miles in diameter. Oops!

[jpak]

5. If I remember correctly

The Bravo test team was absolutely terrified by the blast.

For a brief period following detonation, they were afraid for their lives.

The fallout (as noted in the link) was extensive and deadly.

A 15 megaton bomb is truely a "terror weapon" - I hope no human ever witnesses one these events again.

[hatrack]

6. Could have been worse, I suppose

On 30 October 1961 The USSR exploded a thermonuclear device over Novaya Zemlya which the US later estimated at 58 megatons - more or less.

I'm trying to imagine a nuclear blast not quite four times the size of Castle Bravo.

I'm failing to do so.

[mobuto]

7. The bomb the Russians dropped on

Novaya Zemlya, the so-called Tsar Bomba, was manipulated to REDUCE its yield. Instead of 58 megatons, a fully fueled bomb would have yielded over 100 megatons. That's insane.