Rongelap Atoll in the context of "Hilda Heine"

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👉 Rongelap Atoll in the context of Hilda Heine

Hilda Cathy Heine (born 6 April 1951) is a Marshallese educator and politician. She has served as the president of the Marshall Islands since 2024, having previously served from 2016 to 2020. Heine was the first woman to lead any sovereign country in Micronesia and the first person from the Marshall Islands to earn a doctorate. Prior to entering politics, she worked as a teacher and counselor at Marshall Islands High School and then as a women's rights activist with her organization Women United Together Marshall Islands.

Heine's political career began when she was elected to the Nitijeļā in 2011 and appointed Minister of Education. The legislature selected her for the presidency two weeks into the session in January 2016 after a motion of no confidence removed her predecessor, Casten Nemra. Her defection to the opposition alongside her two sons, also legislators, was pivotal in Nemra's removal. After becoming president, Heine became active in the international politics surrounding climate change. She survived a motion of no confidence in 2018 following a dispute regarding the designation of Rongelap Atoll, with later investigation determining that some of her opponents in this motion had been bribed by developers who wished to use the atoll.

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Rongelap Atoll in the context of Castle Bravo

Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of Operation Castle. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States and the first lithium deuteride-fueled thermonuclear weapon tested using the Teller–Ulam design. Castle Bravo's yield was 15 megatons of TNT [Mt] (63 PJ), 2.5 times the predicted 6 Mt (25 PJ), due to unforeseen additional reactions involving lithium-7, which led to radioactive contamination in the surrounding area.

Radioactive nuclear fallout, the heaviest of which was in the form of pulverized surface coral from the detonation, fell on residents of Rongelap and Utirik atolls, while the more particulate and gaseous fallout spread around the world. The inhabitants of the islands were evacuated three days later and suffered radiation sickness. Twenty-three crew members of the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") were also contaminated by the heavy fallout, experiencing acute radiation syndrome, including the death six months later of Kuboyama Aikichi, the boat's chief radioman. The blast incited a strong international reaction over atmospheric thermonuclear testing.

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