Atomic bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki

The Bombings On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb, a uranium gun-type bomb nicknamed “Little Boy,” on Hiroshima. It exploded with approximately 15 kilotons of force above the city of 350,000, causing a shockwave of destruction and a fireball with temperatures as hot as the sun. Kimura Yoshihiro, in third grade at the time, saw the bomb fall from the plane. “Five or six seconds later, everything turned yellow. It was like I’d looked right at the sun. Then there was a big sound a second or two later and everything went dark” (Rotter 197). Those at the epicenter of the blast were vaporized instantly.Others suffered horrific burns or were crushed by falling buildings. Hundreds threw themselves into the nearby river to escape the fires that burned throughout the city. As Doctor Michihiko Hachiya recalled, “Hiroshima was no longer a city, but a burnt-over prairie” (199). Sadako Kurihara also expressed the aftermath in her poem “Ruins” (226): Hiroshima: nothing, nothing- old and young burned to death, city blown away, socket without eyeball. White bones scattered over reddish rubble; above, sun burning down: city of ruins, still as death. Three days later, the United States dropped a second bomb, a plutonium implosion bomb called “Fat Man,” on Nagasaki, home to an estimated 250,000 at the time. Koichi Wada, two miles away from ground zero, remembered, “The light was indescribable – an unbelievably massive light lit up the whole city.” Sumiteru Tanigu...

After The Bomb Survivors of the Atomic Blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki share their stories Photographs by HARUKA SAKAGUCHI | Introduction By LILY ROTHMAN When the nuclear age began, there was no mistaking it. The But, even as world leaders and ordinary citizens alike immediately began Today, photographer Haruka Sakaguchi is seeking out those individuals, asking them to give a testimony about what they lived through and to write a message to future generations. As the anniversaries of the bombings approach once again, here is a Yasujiro Tanaka age: 75 / location: nagasaki / DISTANCE from hypocenter: 3.4 km TRANSLATION “You are only given One life, So cherish this moment Cherish this day, Be kind to others, Be kind to yourself” TESTIMONY “I was three years old at the time of the bombing. I don’t remember much, but I do recall that my surroundings turned blindingly white, like a million camera flashes going off at once. Then, pitch darkness. I was buried alive under the house, I’ve been told. When my uncle finally found me and pulled my tiny three year old body out from under the debris, I was unconscious. My face was misshapen. He was certain that I was dead. Thankfully, I survived. But since that day, mysterious scabs began to form all over my body. I lost hearing in my left ear, probably due to the air blast. More than a decade after the bombing, my mother began to notice glass shards growing out of her skin – debris from the day of the bombing, presumably. My younger sis...