Radiation safety

World War 3: How US detonated 23 nuclear bombs creating radioactive wasteland

The US was engaged in a Cold War nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union to build more advanced bombs from 1947 until 1991. As part of its nuclear weapon testing, the US went to Bikini Atoll, located in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific Ocean.

The first series of explosive tests were undertaken in 1946 at the Bikini Atoll region under the code name ‘Operation Crossroads’, and the first test was dropped from 520ft, detonating above its target.

The second test, nicknamed ‘Baker’, forming a huge cloud of explosion as it struck its target ships with devastating effect.

Eight years later in 1954, the second round of tests were undertaken by US military.

Codenamed ‘Operation Castle’, the tests would prove yet more monstrous than the previous detonations. The detonation of ‘Castle Bravo’ saw a thermonuclear bomb dropped near Bikini Atoll on March 1 1954.

The explosion was measured at 15 megatons, and created a blast 1000 times more powerful than the deadly Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions of 1945, which ultimately led to Japan’s surrender from World War 2.

The explosion was predicted to reach about four megatons of energy, meaning the scientists involved with the tests were blown away by the sheer force of the weapons they had created.

To make the tests possible the US had requested that residents of the area evacuate, and were promised thet they would be able to return home once they were completed.