Islands have much higher radioactivity than Chernobyl and Fukushima

Researchers recommend that people should not return to some of the Marshall Islands because the radioactivity is still higher than the safety threshold.

Some islands in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific such as Bikini and Enewetak atolls still have higher radioactivity than Chernobyl and Fukushima, though more than 60 years have passed since the US tested nuclear weapons in the region. this. When testing plutonium-239 and 240 isotopes in soil samples, the researchers found that some islands have a radioactivity 10 to 1,000 times as much as Fukushima and about 10 times more than the Chernobyl forbidden zone .

Architects of Runit Island's nuclear waste in the Marshall Islands.(Photo: News.com.au).

In 2016, the research team at Columbia University in New York published works in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on background gamma radiation in the northern Marshall Islands, including the islands of Enewetak, Bikini and Rongelap . They found that the radioactivity on Bikini Island was higher than previously reported, so they decided to conduct further research on the radiation on the islands.

On July 15, the team announced three new works in PNAS magazine about four atolls in the Marshall Islands: Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utirik. The amount of gamma radiation in Bikini atolls, Enjebi island of Enewetak atoll, and the island of Norway at Rongelap atoll are much higher than an island in the southern Marshall Islands that scientists use as references. .

Mushroom cloud in Romeo nuclear bomb explosion on Bikini Island.(Photo: News.com.au).

The amount of radioactivity in Bikini and Nautical Islands is so high that it exceeds the maximum limit agreed by the US and Marshall Islands in the 1990s. The researchers also discovered Island of Runit and Enjebi at Enewetak Atoll, as well as Bikini and Nautical Islands, there is high radioactive density in the soil.

In the second study, scientists worked with professional divers to collect 130 soil samples from Castle Bravo crater in Bikini atoll. Some isotopes such as plutonium-239 and -240, americium-241 and bismuth-207 are higher than others in the Marshall Islands.

In the third study, the authors examined more than 200 fruits, mainly coconut and pineapple in 11 islands of the four atolls north of the Marshall Islands. As a result, the amount of fruit-rich cesium-137 on Bikini and Rongelap islands is also higher than the safety threshold.