Almira Matayoshi, one of 82 Rongelap Islanders who
experienced the Bravo hydrogen bomb test fallout on March 1,
1954, died Sunday at Majuro Hospital.
The mother of Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi, Almira was
very outspoken about the health problems that resulted from
the exposure — and in voicing her concerns about the safety
of Rongelap, long before the US government acknowledged the
serious exposure problems at Rongelap and appropriated a
multi-million trust fund to help resettle the atoll.She
was expected to be buried on Majuro on Thursday this week.
An excerpt from an interview with Glenn Alcalay in 1981
follows.
“I was living on Rongelap at the time of the Bravo explosion
in 1954. The flash of light was very strong, and it seemed
there was a strong power in that lightening which lasted for
only a split-second. Then came the big sound of the
explosion; it was quite a while before the fallout came. The
powder was yellowish and when you walked it was all over
your body. Then people got very weak and began to vomit.
Most of us were weak and my son was weak and out of breath.
“In 1978 I was in Japan to attend an anti-bomb conference
at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and we visited the bomb victims
there. The people told us of some women who had committed
suicide because they felt they were in prison and could not
visit their relatives. This is the same feeling we now have
living on Ebeye due to our inability to visit our families
on Rongelap where we refuse to live because of the ‘poison.’
“I have pains and much fear from the bomb. At that time I
wanted to die, and I have never experienced anything like
that. At that time we were really suffering; our bodies
ached and our feet were covered with burns, and our hair
fell out. Now I see babies growing up abnormally and some
are mentally disturbed, but none of these things happened
before the bomb.
“It has now been twenty-seven years since the bomb, and
at first people here did not really understand what was
going on. But now that some concerned people are helping us,
I am sure that things will get better. Also, if I knew then
what I know now, I never would have gone back to Rongelap
when they returned us in 1957. |
