35 - Regba, Israel

N of Akko.

9 - Rongelap, Micronesia

E of Bikini.

Rongelap Atoll is an island-atoll located in Micronesia. It is a municipality of the Marshall Islands. The Atoll consists of 61 islets with a combined area of approximately 3 square miles (8 km²). Its lagoon covers 388 square miles (1,000 km²). It is historically notable for its close proximity to American hydrogen bomb tests in 1954.

The United States military conducted atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, including hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific from 1946 through 1958. These tests were primarily in the Bikini Atoll, about 150 miles from Rongelap Atoll. On March 1, 1954, the test of the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb generated radioactive fallout which killed a crew member of a Japanese fishing boat, the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, and contaminated Rongelap. The inhabitants were forced to abandon the islands, leaving all their belongings, three days after the test. They were relocated to Kwajalein for medical treatment.
In 1957, three years later, the USA declared the area 'clean and safe' and allowed the islanders to return [1]. Evidence of continued contamination mounted, however, as many residents developed thyroid-tumors, and many youngsters died of leukemia.[citation needed] The magistrate of Rongelap, John Anjain, appealed for international help, without significant response.
In 1985, Greenpeace helped evacuate the people from Rongelap and aided their resettlement on the islets of Mejatto and Ebeye on Kwajalein-atoll. Ebeye is significantly smaller than the islands of Rongelap, and joblessness, suicide, and overcrowding have proven to be problems following the resettlement.
In September 1996, the United States Department of the Interior signed a 45 million dollar resettlement agreement with the islanders, stipulating that the islanders themselves will scrape off a few inches of Rongelap's still contaminated surface. However, this is an operation deemed impossible by some critics. Now, however, the Mayor James Matayoshi says on his website that the project has been successful and was telling about a new promising future for the inhabitants and also for the tourists.

98 - River of Ponds, Newfoundland, Canada

S of the Straits of Belle Isle.

72 - Rochechouart, France

25mi. W of Limoges.

Two hundred million years ago it was the site of impact of one of the largest meteorites ever to hit earth, a monster 1.5km in diameter and some 6000 million tonnes in weight. The traces of this cosmic calamity still attract the curiosity of astronomers, though the only evidence that a layman might notice is the unusual-looking breccia stone many of the region's older buildings are made of: the squashed, shattered, heat-transformed and reconstituted result of the collision

45 - Ryl'sk, Russia

60mi. W of Kursk, 160mi E of Kiev. A merchant from Ryl'sk, Grigory Shelikhov, founded the first Russian settlements in North America. The town has quite a coat-of-arms:

20 - Rumoi, Hokkaido, Japan

60mi. N of Sapporo, on the Sea of Japan.


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109 - Richfield, Kansas

In the SW corner of the state, on the North Fork of the Cimarron.