Ships Still Radio-Active

Northern Advocate, 26 September 1946, Page 5

Ships Still Radio-Active

(2.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Sept. 25. The joint Army and Navy task force has announced that about 75 ships are suspected of dangerous radio-activity as a result of the Bikini, atom bomb tests. The vessels are mostly berthed on the Pacific coast and in Pearl Harbour. There is no danger to anyone not working on the ships and at the harbours and live docking facilities were not affected. All repair and maintenance work on the ships has been suspended 'until radiological experts decontaminate them. Officials were surprised when radioactive residue was found in saltwater pipes in the condensers of shins arriving at the Pacific coast. All the vessels affected were immeditaely quarantined and a special safety school was established at Washington to train 100 officers quickly for decontamination work. The Pacific coast ships were berthed at San Du go. San Francisco and Los Angeles. Some, which had left for the Orient, were diverted to Guam when it was discovered that the radio-activity danger existed on every shin which entered Bikini lagoon after the second bomb explosion on July 25. The only Bikini ship on the Atlantic coast was the animal vessel Burleson, which arrived at Washington on September 23. She was given her clearance when she originally arrived at San Diego, although faint evidences of radio-activity were found. A task force official said it was not realised that radio-activity residue would reach such proportions and be so persistent.