Bombed out The island idyll where atomic tests reverberate

Oppenheimer has reminded the world of the impact of nuclear weapons testing. One Pacific archipelago never forgot

- Lucy Sherriff

At first glance, the aquamarine waters that surround the Marshall Islands seem like paradise. But this idyllic Pacific scene hides a dark secret: it was the location of 23 nuclear detonations as part of US military tests during the cold war between 1946 and 1958.

The bombs were exploded above ground and underwater on Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, including one device 1,100 times larger than the Hiroshima atom bomb. Chornobyl-like levels of radiation forced hundreds from their homes. Bikini Atoll remains deserted. At the US government's urging, residents have begun returning to Enewetak. Today, there is little visible evidence of the tests on the islands except for a 115-metre-wide cement dome that locals nickname the Tomb.

Built in the late 1970s and now aged and cracking, the huge concrete lid on Runit Island covers more than 90,000 cubic metres of radioactive soil and nuclear waste. Unbeknown to the Marshallese people, the US shipped the waste from Nevada, where it was testing nuclear weapons on Native American land.

The legacy of America's nuclear testing on Indigenous communities has come under renewed scrutiny with the release of Oppenheimer, the blockbuster film about the physicist who led development of the atomic bomb.

Although his team tested the nuclear weapons on Native American land - there were 928 large-scale nuclear weapons tests in Nevada, Utah and Arizona during the cold war - the film never mentions the impact of the testing on the local Native Americans.