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E-book Radiation Sounds : Marshallese Music and Nuclear Silences

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Penilaian

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On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated its most power ful thermo-nuclear weapon, code- named “ Castle Bravo,” at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Situated to the southeast of Bikini, the populations of Rongelap Atoll, including people residing on Ailingnae and Utrik Atolls, watched in confusion as the sun seemed to rise in the west. On Utrik, Rijen Michael, eigh teen years old at the time of the explosion, was startled from his sleep by women talking about the incident, the baam, with a great concern that it was the “end of the world.”1 Yostimi Compaj, born in 1942 in the midst of World War II, retains sensory imprints of the bomb as well: “First, there was a great light that came to the island [Utrik]. It was beautiful, with shades of pink like the early- morning light.”2 The stunning visual display was caused by Bravo’s radioactive mushroom cloud, which rose into the stratosphere to an altitude of more than 115,000 feet and spread 70 to 100 miles in diameter in under ten minutes. Eventually, the pattern of fallout expanded over 7,000 square miles.3As the cloud plumed higher into the atmosphere, a shock wave and resonant boom prompted screams from frightened children on Rongelap. Molly, a Rongelapese woman who was fourteen years old at the time, ex-plained that people were frightened by the “loud sound [that] shook the ground” and caused the thatched houses to shake.4 Rijen described this same loud rumble that reached Utrik as iñ?rñ?r, the Marshallese onomato-poeic word that describes an array of unpleasant noises (groan, moan, rumble, growl, grunt). As Yostimi explained, “After [the sky changed colors], here was a great sound, and it was the sound that terrified us. We ran to the church then because we didn’t know what it was, because the sound was so loud when the bomb fell.”5 Aruko Bobo, who was living on Rongelap, described how “the air around us was split open by an awful noise. I cannot describe what it was like. It felt like thunder, but the force from the noise was so strong that we could actually feel it. It was like the air was alive. . . . Every thing was crazy.”6Later that day the wind carried irradiated coral dust from three com-pletely vaporized islets at Bikini Atoll to the east and covered the atolls of Rongelap, Ailingnae, Rongerik, and Utrik.7 However, the island popula-tions had no explanation for why white flakes began to fall on what had been a clear, albeit unusual, morning. On the atolls of Ailingnae and Rongelap, children played in the fallout because they thought it was snow.8They “tasted it” and “rubbed it in their eyes.”9Women recall that their scalps burned and their hair fell out in large chunks. Men, women, and children became violently ill and ran into the lagoon for respite, but they could not sense that the water was dangerously radioactive.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

780.2 SCH r

Penerbit

London : Duke University Press., 2021

Deskripsi Fisik

313 hlm

Bahasa

ISBN/ISSN

9781478021919

Klasifikasi

780.2

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Miscellany of Music

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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