This is the story of a very remote place in one of the least visited countries on earth. And about people forced into exile.
The largest weapons experiment in history turned the paradisical atoll islands of the Pacific into an apocalyptic ghost town. Radioactive dust has continued to cause disease and despair. But there is also, despite everything, something hopeful and life-affirming here.
We visit Ebeye in Kwajaleina Atoll – this is where many of the Bikini residents ended up after the US test-fired 23 nuclear bombs, leaving their homes in rubble and becquerel-irradiated silence.
Here, the population lives on scarce rental income from the US military base on the neighbouring island of Kwaj. And in the shadow of the daily struggle for survival, faith in the future is clouded by rising sea levels that are slowly eroding their island.
Bikini islands and the two-piece swimsuit? Yes, there is a connection.
French designer Louis Réard unveiled his new and daring swimsuit model in July 1946, originally intending to launch the two-piece under the name ‘the atom’ because of its minimalist size. But a few days before the launch, the Americans had famously detonated their first nuclear test in Bikini Atoll and the word Bikini was on everyone’s lips. Réard, who considered his new garment to be extremely ‘explosive’, renamed the swimsuit, with the prefix ‘bi’ also alluding to the two parts of the state-of-the-art swimsuit.
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