Elugelab
Island Enewetak islet destroyed by 1952 nuclear test
Island in Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands, destroyed by 1950s US thermonuclear tests; of interest to historians of nuclear testing and Pacific military history.
Elugelab was a small island of Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands that was obliterated by the U.S. thermonuclear test known as Ivy Mike on 1 November 1952. The explosion was a full-scale thermonuclear detonation that vaporized the island.
Today the original island no longer exists as it did prior to the test; the detonation created a large crater and redistributed coral and sand in the atoll. The site is part of the broader history of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands and is remote from populated centres.
The Ivy Mike device detonated at Elugelab was the United States’ first full-scale thermonuclear experiment and had a multi-megaton yield; the event marked a major technical milestone in nuclear weapons development.
Elugelab lay within Enewetak Atoll in the northern Marshall Islands, in the central Pacific Ocean; the atoll and its remnants are remote and were part of a series of U.S. nuclear test sites in the mid-20th century.
- Ivy Mike test: Site of the first full-scale thermonuclear (hydrogen) test, which destroyed much of the island and left a crater and rubble field in the atoll.
