Does anyone live on bikini atoll – What Became of the Residents

You are here because you want to know what’s left of Bikini Atoll. In fact, does anyone live on bikini atoll? The United States conducted 67 nuclear explosive tests at the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean between the years 1946 and 1958.

This was the site of twenty-three tests during the twelve year period, including the devastating detonation of a hydrogen bomb on March 1, 1954.

At the time of the tests, inhabitants of the islands were moved to other locations.

Nearly 60 years after the last of 23 nuclear explosions in its land, air and water, Bikini Atoll again looks like the idyllic Pacific paradise it was in 1946 — a bracelet of sandy, palm-covered islets encircling an azure lagoon. But it doesn’t take long to pick up on Bikini’s enduring eeriness, says Stanford biology professor Stephen Palumbi, who visited the remote atoll for a 10-day research trip featured in Big Pacific, a documentary that aired this summer on PBS.

Though many of the displaced residents and their descendants wish to return to their homes, there have been no surveys of gamma radiation over the past several decades, leaving it unclear if the islands are safe to live upon.

But the question is does anyone live on bikini atoll? Getting to Bikini is a logistical feat. The atoll is in the Marshall Islands, halfway between Hawaii and Australia. For most outsiders, it takes several island hops, including a 27-hour boat ride. The few who make the trek are typically expert scuba divers keen to explore the armada of sunken warships, including the USS Saratoga, an aircraft carrier the length of a Manhattan avenue block that lies on the lagoon’s bottom.

Normal life on the atoll is impossible, because the groundwater is contaminated. No one lives there apart from a half-dozen custodians who tend a small ghost village. All food and water must be imported.

Research revealed that the explosions — along with similar tests by other nations — caused a spike in atmospheric levels of carbon 14, a radioactive isotope that’s naturally created by cosmic rays interacting with nitrogen. Like other forms of carbon, C-14 is readily absorbed by plants and, in turn, animals so next time if you think of whether anyone live on Bikini Atoll you got your answer.