NewsWeek.com
Bikini Atoll in Marshall Islands was used by the United States to test nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The US government detonated 23 nuclear weapons between 1946 and 1958. Three islands were vaporized, and radioactive contamination was left behind. Before nuclear testing, the US government forced 167 people from Bikini Atoll to evacuate. Many of these people starved due to lack of food on the islands they evacuated to. Almost 200 were sent home in the early 1970s and removed again in 1978 because they had ingested radioactive cesium. Research suggests that some turtles survived living in the nuclear testing area and that the effects are still measurable in them long after their initial exposure.