Daigo Fukuryū Maru
Daigo Fukuryū Maru (第五福龍丸, 'lucky dragon five') was a Japanese tuna boat, which was exposed and contaminated by radioactive fallout caused by a hydrogen bomb from the United States. United States during an experiment in Bikini Atoll (Marshall Islands) on March 1, 1954.
Before the incident
In 1947, Koza (Wakayama) was launched as a fishing vessel named Dainana Kotoshiro Maru (第七事代丸, 'Kotoshiro Maru Seven'). Later she was transformed into a tuna boat in Yaizu (Shizuoka) receiving the name Daigo Fukuryu Maru .
Accidental radioactive contamination
When the hydrogen bomb test took place on March 1, 1954, the Daigo Fukuryu Maru was fishing 40 nautical miles (74 km) outside the boundary of the area previously delimited by the United States government.
The hydrogen bomb, called Castle Bravo, of 15 Mt (megatonnes) or 15 million tons of TNT, equivalent to a cube of TNT 209 m on a side, exploded at 6:45 (local time), more than an hour after sunrise. The sky in the west lit up like a sunrise. Eight minutes later came the sound of a thermonuclear explosion. A couple of hours later, and for three hours, a flaky white dust of calcined coral began to fall, which had absorbed the highly radioactive fission products. Lacking suitable instruments, the fishermen cleaned the deck of the ship with their own hands. The dust stuck to their skin and hair. After the radiation symptoms appeared, the fishermen called it shi no hai (死の灰, 'ash of death').
The nuclear test was more than twice as powerful as initially estimated. Both the ship, its 23 crew members and its cargo of fish were contaminated by radiation.
The fishermen realized the danger and tried to move away from the area, but the maximum speed of the boat was 5 knots (9.3 km/h, or 5.8 miles per hour), so they were exposed to the radiation for several hours.
In addition to the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, other fishing boats are known to have been exposed to radiation. Subsequently, the United States extended the danger zone for its tests.
The 23 crew members suffered from radiation syndrome (nausea, headaches, burns on exposed skin, sore eyes, bleeding gums, and other symptoms). They arrived at the port of Yaizu on March 14. They were admitted to two hospitals in Tokyo.
Six months later, on September 23, 1954, one of them, Kuboyama Aikichi (the chief radio operator, aged 40) died. Before dying, he declared: "I pray to be the last victim of an atomic or hydrogen bomb."
The other affected fishermen had to be hospitalized for years in Japanese clinics. One of them, the fisherman Misaki, through the reporter Hilmar Pabel who visited him, sent the following message to the world: «The same fate as ours threatens all of humanity. Say it like this to those who have the responsibility of command and God willing that they listen to you. [Jungk. R. (1976) Brighter than a thousand suns. Editorial Argos]
The Daigo Fukuryu Maru tragedy sparked a strong anti-nuclear movement in Japan. The United States government feared that this movement would turn into an anti-American movement, so it tried to negotiate quickly with the Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, considered a pro-American politician. The United States government awarded $200,000 to the victims. In the agreement, the Japanese government agreed not to seek further compensation from the United States government.
The Daigo Fukuryu Maru can be visited in Tokyo.
Influence on popular culture
Five years after the incident, Japanese film director Shindo Kaneto made a film called Daigo Fukuryu Maru, starring actor Uno Jukichi.
This incident has also inspired other films such as Godzilla, which tells the story of a monster mutated by radiation.
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