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On March 1, 1954, Bikini Atoll became ground zero during the Cold War. The United States conducted its largest nuclear test. Code-named Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb detonated on Bikini Atoll, producing an intense fireball followed by a 20-mile-high mushroom cloud.

Radioactive fallout spread quickly, drifting toward Rongelap, an inhabited island nearby. The 'sun' that day was a thousand times more powerful than the blast at Hiroshima.

Officials in the Marshallese government say it would take $1.5 to $2.5 billion to complete the cleanup and to compensate the victims of the tests - a fraction of the billions to be spent rebuilding Iraq.

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