The deadly ashes died from the first American thermonuclear bomb test

Due to miscalculation, America's largest destructive thermonuclear bomb test, Castle Bravo in 1954, created a major ecological and environmental disaster.

On the morning of January 3, 1954, when the sun was still not rising, the crew of the Japanese ship Daigo Fukuryu Maru caught off the Marshall Islands in the northern Pacific suddenly saw a dazzling glow in the sky and hear sounds like thunder.

Only a few minutes later, they picked up on the ship the gray dust particles, which many people later recalled and called it the "ashes of death". In the evening, some of them were nauseous and had strange burns on their bodies without any cause. On March 14, when they returned to the mainland, they learned that they had been exposed to radiation from a US-infamous thermonuclear bomb test, according to Slate.fr.

Castle Bravo is the codename of the first dry-fueled thermonuclear bomb test , detonated at Bikini Atoll, the Marshall Islands, opening the test sequence of the American Castle campaign. This is the most powerful US-fired thermonuclear bomb with an energy level of up to 15 Megaton (1000 times the energy of one of the two nuclear bombs that the US dropped on Japan), far exceeding the originally expected 4-6 Megaton.

Mushroom radioactive cloud formed after Castle Bravo explosion.(Photo: US Air Force).

The explosion created a fireball that could be seen from Kwajalein Island up to 450km away. The destructive power of the explosion created a hole 70 meters deep and 2,000 meters in diameter.

According to Soviet nuclear scientists, the reason for the release of the expected excess energy is that American scientists have made a mistake in choosing lithium isotopes to make bombs . This leads to a fusion reaction that is too strong to be controlled.

Before conducting the experiment, American experts carefully calculated the level of radioactive dispersal, the inhabitants living in the islands 60km away from the center of the explosion were all evacuated so as not to be contaminated, the ships moved in the area. Also informed not to enter restricted areas.

However, the wrong prediction of weather conditions and sudden changes in the wind caused the radioactivity cloud to be pushed to a higher altitude than expected, and the level of dispersal was beyond the expectations of American experts. 100km, creating a white dust rain in a very wide range.

According to recorded video material, mushroom-shaped radioactive cloud with a diameter of 11km formed from the explosion reached a height of 14km in just one minute and then reached a height of 40km with a diameter of 100km within The next 10 minutes, causing radioactive dispersal within 16km of the center of the explosion, seriously affected residents of nearby islands.

Experts from Slate.fr said that this thermonuclear bomb test has caused a real environmental disaster. Hundreds of residents living on many small islands, up to 180km from the center of the explosion, are still contaminated with high levels. Many of them died afterwards due to radiation-related illnesses.

In addition, many crews of ships passing by the bomb test area were also affected, including the case of 116 crew members of the US Navy carrier USS Bairoki, which caused troops This person has a high risk of cancer.

The information crew of Daigo Fukuryu Maru ship died in the fall of 1954 because of acute radiation exposure, the other three members also died a few years later due to various cancers. The sailors were seriously contaminated because they did not receive the evacuation notice from the US Navy, so they accidentally entered the area 60km from the center of the explosion.

According to Alex Wellerstein, professor of history from Stevens Institute of Technology (USA), Castle Bravo's thermonuclear bomb test is a warning to the arrogance and ignorance of nuclear scientists at that time when created. a weapon that they did not anticipate its power and consequences.