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Victim of Bikini Atoll nuclear test dies 67 years later

He died earlier this month, days after the 67th anniversary of the bomb detonation. (ANJ Photo)
He died earlier this month, days after the 67th anniversary of the bomb detonation. (ANJ Photo)
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25 Mar 2021 02:03:20 GMT9
25 Mar 2021 02:03:20 GMT9

Pierre Boutier

TOKYO: Forty-five years ago this month, the Tokyo government opened a memorial that consisted of one dilapidated wooden boat, the Daigo Fukuryū Maru (Lucky Dragon No. 5). It was one of the unluckiest boats ever named “Lucky.”

Matashichi Oishi was, perhaps, the luckiest person on that boat; he was the last survivor.

The tiny tuna-fishing boat was a long way from home on March 1, 1954, and it found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was roughly 130 km east of Bikini Atoll when the United States test-fired the most powerful thermonuclear bomb the world had ever seen. It was 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The 15-megaton fireball was so intense that Oishi compared it to the sun. He titled his book about the incident When the Sun Rises in the West.

The Lucky Dragon was showered with radioactive dust that fell on the 23 crew members. The ash that fell upon the ship was made up of strontium-90, cesium-137, selenium-141, and uranium-237. Symptoms of radiation sickness soon followed, including hair loss, diarrhea and blisters on the sailors’ bodies and faces.

The crew was hospitalized for six months but doctors claimed there was no connection between their symptoms and the nuclear test. The United States offered no cooperation in their treatment.

Oishi developed liver cancer, hepatitis C and sleeping sickness, which he blamed on his irradiation. His child was stillborn with bone deformities. Some of his crew members died young, many with liver problems.

Oishi had to wait 50 years until the Japanese state recognized him as a victim of nuclear fallout and for his health expenses to be covered by the state.

He died earlier this month, days after the 67th anniversary of the bomb detonation.

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