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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daigo Fukuryū Maru | 3/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daigo_Fukuryū_Maru | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:10:23.159082+00:00 | kb-cron |
Crew member Sanjirō Masuda (増田三次郎) died aged 54 after contracting various illnesses and diseases, including cirrhosis of the liver, sepsis, stomach ulcers and diabetes. Crew member Yūichi Masuda (増田祐一) died aged 55 after collapsing suddenly in the field in which he was working and died less than 10 days later. Again, cirrhosis of the liver was cited as a cause. Crew member Shinzō Suzuki (鈴木慎三) died on 18 June 1982, aged 57, on the Meishin Expressway (名神高速公路) after the truck he was driving was involved in a rear-end collision, and burned to death in the wreckage. When Oishi Matashichi contacted his widow (the accident happened 4 years before he discovered the fact because they had lost contact), she told him that her husband had suffered from general weakness. Cirrhosis of the liver was once again mentioned. Crew member Hiroshi Kozuka (小塚博) was diagnosed with stomach cancer in March 1986. He, like some of the other crew, had been regularly attending annual check-ups, which began in 1957 at the National Institute of Radiological Science (放射線医学総合研究所) in Chiba (千葉市). Despite having his regular check-up just a couple of weeks before, the cancer was diagnosed by a local doctor shortly after stomach pains began and didn't subside. He underwent surgery and had two-thirds of his stomach removed. Recovering well, he was diagnosed with pneumonia just 1 week later. In 1987, chief engineer Chūji Yamamoto (山本忠司) was admitted to a hospital in Gamagori (蒲郡) the day before he was due to undergo his latest annual check-up. He was diagnosed with liver, colon, and lung cancer. Oishi Matashichi visited Yamamoto in the hospital along with another crew member, Tsutsui (筒井), on 21 February 1987, only for Yamamoto to succumb to his cancer 13 days later on 6 March 1987, aged 60. Crew member Kaneshige Takagi (高木兼重) succumbed to liver cancer aged 66; the news filtered through from Hoto Island (保戸島, part of Kyūshū) to Oishi Matashichi in December 1989. During the phone call received from the wife of Takagi, she mentioned that an employee at the crematorium told her that the bones of Takagi after cremation were the most thin and fragile that they'd ever seen.
== Responsibility and remembrance == The US government refused to disclose the fallout's composition due to "national security", as the fallout's isotopic ratios — namely a percentage of uranium-237 — could reveal the design of the Castle Bravo device through radio-chemical analysis. For instance, Joseph Rotblat may have deduced the staging nature of the device by studying the ratio and presence of tell-tale isotopes present in the fallout. As of 1954, the Soviet Union had not yet been successful with thermonuclear staging and such information could have assisted in their development of a thermonuclear weapon. Lewis Strauss, the head of the AEC, issued several denials that claimed the United States were not to blame. He also hypothesized that the lesions on the fishermen's bodies were not caused by radiation but by the chemical action of the caustic burnt lime that is produced when coral is calcined, and that they were inside the danger zone. He told President Eisenhower's press secretary that the Daigo Fukuryū Maru may have been a "red spy outfit", commanded by a Soviet agent intentionally exposing the ship's crew and catch in order to embarrass the US and gain intelligence on the test's device. Later, the United States expanded the danger zone and it was revealed that in addition to the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, many other fishing boats were in the expanded zone at the time. It is estimated that about one hundred fishing boats were contaminated to some degree by fallout from the test. Despite denials by Lewis Strauss concerning the extent of the claimed contamination of the fish caught by Daigo Fukuryu Maru and other ships, the FDA later imposed rigid restrictions on tuna imports. At first, the US claimed that the extent of the Lucky Dragon incident contamination was trivial. Later, the United States paid Kuboyama's widow and children the equivalent in yen of about $2,800 ($26,700 in 2020). The tragedy of the Daigo Fukuryū Maru gave rise to a fierce anti-nuclear movement in Japan, rising especially from the fear that the contaminated fish had entered the market. The Japanese and U.S. governments negotiated a compensation settlement, with the transfer to Japan of a compensation of $15,300,000, of which the fishery received a compensation of $2 million, with the surviving crew receiving about ¥ 2 million each, ($5,550 in 1954, $52,800 in 2020). It was also agreed that the victims would not be given hibakusha status. The Japanese government pledged that it would not pursue further reparations from the U.S. government. In 1965, Richard Hudson published a chronicle of the events illustrated by Ben Shahn and titled Kuboyama and the saga of the 'Lucky Dragon'. It reads like an anti-nuclear pamphlet. In the 1990s, Oishi Matashichi worked to erect a memorial for the tuna impacted by the fallout. He gathered small donations and raised enough to erect a stone memorial called "The Tuna Epitaph" at the Tsukiji fish market. While the stone was being moved they erected a metal plaque within the market.
== Post-contamination ==