ATOM TESTS AT BIKINI

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27405, 19 July 1954, Page 9

ATOM TESTS AT BIKINI

JAPANESE UNION’S PROTEST (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, July 17. A Japanese delegate protested to the Congress of the International Transport Workers’ Federation in London today about the effects of the American atomic tests in Bikini. Mr T. Nishimaki, delegate for the All-Japan Seamen’s Union, told 300 delegates from 30 countries that the freedom of the seas had been limited by the Bikini tests, both'for navigation and fishing. * He declared that such limitations should only be made after agreement between nations, and with union representatives present. Mr Nishimaki said that as a result of the Bikini tests, fishermen had become ill and fish had to be thrown away. Losses, he said, amounted to about £1,830,000. The Japanese fishermen affected by the radio-active dust from the tests had received a severe economic blow. Medical treatment had hindered them from working for a long time. Steamship crews and lighthouse keepers had also been affected, and the people in Japan were tormented by anxiety about radio-active rain.