<백색 섬광이 히로시마의 심장부를 갈기갈기 찢으며, 섭씨 2800도에 달하는 열구름을 퍼트렸다. 하늘을 날던 새는 몸뚱이가 터져버렸다. 비행기를 올려다보던 한 부대의 군인들(일본인)은 눈알이 녹아 뺨을 타고 흘러내리는 걸 느꼈다.
아이오이(相生橋) 다리 근처에 있던 사람들은 폭발과 동시에 재가 되었다. 조금 더 멀리 있던 사람들은 피부가 타들어가고 갈기갈기 찢겨나갔으며, 건물들은 붕괴하고, 도로는 타르가 녹아 부글부글 끓어올랐다. 아이들은 잔해에 깔려 죽은 부모들을 속수무책으로 바라볼 수 밖에 없었다.
한 남자는 “턱이 사라지고 입 밖으로 혀가 대롱대롱 매달린 한 여자가 시커먼 장대비가 내리는 신쇼마치 거리를 헤매고 있었다”고 보고했다. 한 전문대학생은 “다리 밑에는 땅을 파서 만든 커다란 물웅덩이가 있었는데, 한 여인이 웅덩이 속에서 온몸이 빨갛게 화상을 입은 벌거벗은 아이를 머리 위로 들어 올린 채 흐느끼고 있었다.
또 다른 여인은 아이에게 화상을 입은 가슴을 물리며 울고 있었다”고 했다. 폭발 지점 근처의 한 여학교는 600명도 넘는 어린 학생들과 함께 증발했다.
워싱턴에서는 해리 S. 트루먼 대통령이 준비된 성명서를 발표했다.
“태양이 그 위력을 얻는 우주의 기본적인 힘을 극동 지역에서 전쟁을 일으킨 자들에게 가했습니다…(중략) 그곳에서 무얼 생산하고 있는지 아는 사람은 거의 없습니다. 어마어마한 양의 원료가 그 공장 안으로 들어갔지만 나오는 건 보지 못했죠. 폭발물의 크기가 놀라울 정도로 작기때문입니다. 우리는 역사상 가장 거대한 과학 도박에 20억 달러를 투입했고 우리는 성공했습니다.” 트루먼은 일본이 즉시 항복하지 않는다면 “지구상에서 한 번도 본 적 없는 파멸의 비를 내리겠다”고 공언했다.
그로부터 사흘도 채 지나지 않아 아름다운 건물과 언덕이 많은 해변 때문에 일본의 샌프란시스코로 불렸던 나가사키에 플루토늄 핵폭탄이 투하됐다. 나가사키는 일본 내에서 기독교 신자가 가장 많은 곳이기도 했다. 나가사키는 구름에 싸여 시야가 확보되지 않았고, 조종사는 상공을 선회하며 폭탄을 투하할 정도로 구름이 걷히기만을 기다렸다.
마침내 더 이상 지체할 수 없었던 조종사는 플루토늄 핵폭탄을 본래 계획했던 시내의 타깃에서 수 킬로미터 떨어진 외곽의 카톨릭 성당 위에 투하했다. 이 예기치 못한 결정 덕에 수천 명이 목숨을 구했다. 폭발은 언덕에 막혀 그 위력이 부분적으로 완화되긴 했지만, 2~3초 만에 4000명 이상의 사람들을 태워죽일 정도로 강력했다.
폭탄 내에 있는 실제로 에너지로 전환된 플루토늄의 양은 고작 1그램, 링컨의 얼굴이 찍힌 1센트 짜리 동전 무게의 3분의 1밖에 되지 않았다.
고국으로 방향을 돌린 비행기에서 그 버섯구름을 본 한 목격자는 이렇게 말했다.
“멀리에서도 알록달록한 구름 기둥이 보였는데, 몸부림치는 무지개들로 이루어진 거대한 산 같았다. 살아있는 수많은 것들이 이 무지개들과 함께 사라졌다.”>
참고로 원폭이 투하된 후 초기 2~4개월 동안 히로시마에서는 9만 명에서 16만6000명, 나가사키에서는 6만 명에서 8만 명 정도가 사망했다.
그중 각 도시 사망자 절반은 원자폭탄을 떨어뜨린 당일에 집계됐다. 미국에선 이 사건이 최단기에 가장 많은 시민을 죽였다고 평가했는데 15~20%가 피폭으로, 20~30%가 섬광화상으로, 50~60%가 질병과 부상으로 죽었다고 보고했다.
정리/김필재(조갑제닷컴) spooner1@hanmail.net
[관련자료] The Hiroshima Nagasaki tragedy
21 August, 2015 00:00 00 AM
On 6 August 1945, a number of eyes in the Japanese city of Hiroshima turned skyward at the drone of a US B-29 bomber flying across the cloudless sky, accompanied by two other aircraft. Their arrival was not a surprise the early warning radar net had detected the incoming planes and an air-raid alert had been issued for the city. But soon the Japanese military realized that only three planes were incoming, and the alert was lifted. The anti-aircraft guns sat silent, and the fighter planes lingered in their hangars. A mere three planes were considered incapable of posing a significant threat, so it was presumed that these craft were weather planes— a precursor to a true attack. The Japanese military opted to conserve their diminishing supplies of munitions and fuel for use against more serious threats.
The sound of the American planes drew the attention of the city’s residents, many of whom were outdoors participating in work programs. A few saw a large parachute unfurl beneath the B-29 before it flew away, but most saw only the flash that soon followed. The events that unfolded that morning on the streets of Hiroshima were recorded by those who survived. These survivors would come to be known as hibakusha— “people exposed to the bomb.”
For those who didn’t see the planes, the sudden flare of harsh light was the first indication that something unusual had happened. In that eerily silent moment, white clouds sprung from the clear blue sky as the Little Boy spilled the destructive equivalent of thirteen thousand tons of TNT over the city, projecting intense radiation in every direction.
Yoshitaka Kawamoto was thirteen years old when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima, in a classroom less than a kilometer away from the hypocenter:
“One of my classmates, I think his name is Fujimoto, he muttered something and pointed outside the window, saying, “A B-29 is coming.” He pointed outside with his finger. So I began to get up from my chair and asked him, “Where is it?” Looking in the direction that he was pointing towards, I got up on my feet, but I was not yet in an upright position when it happened. All I can remember was a pale lightening flash for two or three seconds. Then, I collapsed. I don t know much time passed before I came to. It was awful, awful. The smoke was coming in from somewhere above the debris. Sandy dust was flying around. I was trapped under the debris and I was in terrible pain and that’s probably why I came to. I couldn’t move, not even an inch. Then, I heard about ten of my surviving classmates singing our school song. I remember that. I could hear sobs. Someone was calling his mother. But those who were still alive were singing the school song for as long as they could. I think I joined the chorus. We thought that someone would come and help us out. That’s why we were singing a school song so loud. But nobody came to help, and we stopped singing one by one. In the end, I was singing alone.”
A bit farther away at 3.7 kilometers, a chief weather man for the Hiroshima District Weather Bureau named Isao Kita describes his experience:
“Well, at that time, I happened to be receiving the transmission over the wireless. I was in the receiving room and I was facing northward. I noticed the flashing light. It was not really a big flash. But still it drew my attention. In a few seconds, the heat wave arrived. After I noticed the flash, white clouds spread over the blue sky. It was amazing. It was as if blue morning-glories had suddenly bloomed up in the sky. It was funny, I thought. Then came the heat wave. It was very very hot. Even though there was a window glass in front of me, I felt really hot. It was as if I was looking directly into a kitchen oven. I couldn’t bear the heat for a long time. Then I heard the cracking sound. I don’t know what made that sound, but probably it came from the air which suddenly expanded in the room. By that time, I realized that the bomb had been dropped. As I had been instructed, I pushed aside the chair and lay with my face on the floor. Also as I had been instructed during the frequent emergency exercises, I covered my eyes and ears with hands like this. And I started to count. You may feel that I was rather heartless just to start counting. But for us, who observed the weather, it is a duty to record the process of time, of various phenomena. So I started counting with the light flash. When I counted to 5 seconds, I heard the groaning sound. At the same time, the window glass was blown off and the building shook from the bomb blast. So the blast reached that place about 5 seconds after the explosion. We later measured the distance between the hypocenter and our place. And with these two figures, we calculated that the speed of the blast was about 700 meters per second. The speed of sound is about 330 meters per second, which means that the speed of the blast was about twice as fast as the speed of sound.”
The sky became reddish over Hiroshima, and saturated with smoke and dust. All who were alive and mobile quickly began to try to help the injured or flee the area, few realizing the magnitude of the destruction. The scent of char was on the air as fires began to break out around the city. Ninety percent of Hiroshima’s buildings has been pulverized or damaged by the pressure wave— which had swept virtually unhindered across the flat landscape of the area— and tens of thousands of people were dead or dying.
Of the survivors, Akiko Takakura was among the closest to ground zero at only three hundred meters. She was twenty years old at the time, and she had just started her morning routine at her job in the in the Bank of Hiroshima.
“Well, it was like a white magnesium flash. I lost consciousness right after or almost at the same time I saw the flash. When I regained consciousness, I found myself in the dark. I heard my friends, Ms. Asami, crying for her mother. Soon after, I found out that we actually had been attacked. Afraid of being caught by a fire, I told Ms. Asami to run out of the building. Ms. Asami, however, just told me to leave her and to try to escape by myself because she thought that she couldn’t make it anywhere. She said she couldn’t move. I said to her that I couldn’t leave her, but she said that she couldn’t even stand up. While we were talking, the sky started to grow lighter. Then, I heard water running in the lavatory. Apparently the water pipes had exploded. So I drew water with my helmet to pour over Ms. Asami’s head again and again. She finally regained consciousness fully and went out of the building with me. We first thought to escape to the parade grounds, but we couldn’t because there was a huge sheet of fire in front of us. So instead, we squatted down in the street next to a big water pool for fighting fires, which was about the size of this table. Since Hiroshima was completely enveloped in flames, we felt terribly hot and could not breathe well at all. After a while, a whirlpool of fire approached us from the south. It was like a big tornado of fire spreading over the full width of the street.”
29-year-old Tsutomu Yamaguchi was only in town because his employer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had sent him there on a business trip. He was walking across a potato field on his way to work when he heard a plane flying high and saw two parachutes descending. His account at first seems ‘ordinary’ amid extraordinary horror:
“It was very clear, a really fine day, nothing unusual about it at all. I was in good spirits,” he said. “As I was walking along, I heard the sound of a plane, just one. I looked up into they sky and saw the B-29, and it dropped two parachutes. I was looking up into the sky at them, and suddenly…it was like a flash of magnesium, a great flash in the sky, and I was blown over.”
Half his face was badly burned, his hair gone, and his eardrums ruptured. Not knowing what else to do, he continued on to his employers’ offices—climbing over the bodies of the dead while weeping uncontrollably—and found only rubble awaiting him there.
Soon the control operator of the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation in Tokyo noticed that the Hiroshima station was off the air. Unaware of what had happened, he tried to re-establish his program by using another cable, but that attempt failed as well.
The Tokyo railroad telegraph center also discovered that the main telegraph line had stopped working just north of Hiroshima. From those stations which were within sight of Hiroshima and still in contact, confused telegraph reports of a terrible explosion began to arrive in Tokyo.
As the mushroom cloud towered over the city, the smoky sky churned with lightning and thunder. Within a few hours, a sticky black rain began to fall which blackened everything it touched. Makeshift hospitals treated overwhelming numbers of injured as thousands of wounded left the city and hundreds of people attempted to enter the affected area to find their loved ones.
Hiroshi Sawachika was an army doctor stationed at the army headquarters in the neighboring city of Ujina on that day:
“I was told to go to the headquarters where there were lots of injured persons waiting. I went there and I started to give treatment with the help of nurses and medical course men. We first treated the office personnel for their injuries. Most of them had broken glass and pieces of wood stuck into them. We treated them one after another. Afterwards, we heard the strange noise. It sounded as if a large flock of mosquitoes were coming from a distance. We looked out of the window to find out what was happening. We saw that citizens from the town were marching towards us. They looked unusual. We understood that the injured citizens were coming towards us for treatment. But while, we thought that there should be Red Cross Hospitals and another big hospitals in the center of the town. So why should they come here, I wondered, instead of going there. At that time, I did not know that the center of the town had been so heavily damaged. After a while, with the guide of the hospital personnel, the injured persons reached our headquarters. With lots of injured people arriving, we realized just how serious the matter was. We decided that we should treat them also. Soon afterwards, we learned that many of them had badly burned. As they came to us, they held their hands aloft. They looked like they were ghosts.”
Several hours later, word reached the Japanese government in Tokyo that some kind of catastrophic explosion had leveled the city. Sixteen hours after the event, Tokyo finally learned what had caused the disaster when the White House made a public announcement in Washington regarding the nuclear attack. Three days later, the city of Nagasaki was attacked by a second atomic bomb, and though the hilly terrain there protected much of the city, tens of thousands were injured and killed by the twenty-one kiloton Fat Man and the radiation it produced.
One man who happened to be in the city was 29-year-old Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the same survivor who had been in Hiroshima on business when the first bomb fell. He was standing in his employer’s office, wrapped in bandages, describing to his manager the recent events in Hiroshima. The manager had been expressing skepticism regarding Yamaguchi’s description of the magnitude of a single bomb. Just then a bomb of similar magnitude lit the sky outside, shattering the window and stripping Yamaguchi of his bandages. He fell to the floor, where a steel wall cast a shadow that shielded him from the worst.
Japan shortly surrendered, ending the Second World War.
Radiation sickness took many lives in the following days, and over two hundred thousand people were exposed to heavy non-fatal doses of radiation during the attacks and due to fallout in the intervening weeks. These men, women, and children who were exposed to the bomb are the hibakusha. This status entitles one to a monthly allowance from the government as compensation for injuries, since many of them have lingering health problems from which they will never recover. The radiation exposure has also left them much more susceptible to cancer.
Yamaguchi also survived his second brush with an atomic bomb, though he spent weeks in a shelter, near death. He awoke to find that his house had been torn to a ruin, but his wife and son had survived. He lived on until 04 January 2010, succumbing to stomach cancer at the age of 93. There were more than 100 others affected by both bombs to varying degrees, but Yamaguchi is the only person officially recognized by the Japanese government as a survivor of both bombs.
It is not as if Sunao Tsuboi needs another reminder of his violent encounter, as a 20-year-old university student, with a “living hell on earth”. The facial scars he has carried for seven decades are proof enough. But, as if to remind himself of the day he became a witness to the horrors of nuclear warfare, he removes a a black-and-white photograph and points to the shaved head of a young man looking away from the lens.
“That’s me,” he says. “We were hoping we would find some sort of medical help, but there was no treatment available, and no food or water. I thought I had reached the end.”
The location is Miyuki Bridge, Hiroshima, three hours after the Enola Gay, a US B-29 bomber, dropped a 15-kiloton nuclear bomb on the city on the morning of 6 August 1945. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people were killed instantly in the months that followed the death toll rose to 140,000.
In the photo, one of only a handful of surviving images taken in Hiroshima that day, Tsuboi is sitting on the road with several other people, their gaze directed at the gutted buildings around them. To one side, police officers douse schoolchildren with cooking oil to help soothe the pain of their burns.
As Japan prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear attack in history, Tsuboi and tens of thousands of other hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) are again confronting their own mortality.
“People like me are losing the strength to talk about their experiences and continue the campaign against nuclear weapons,” says Tsuboi, a retired school principal who has travelled the world to warn of the horrors of nuclear warfare.
The average age of the 183,000 registered survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks rose just above 80 for the first time last month.
While each has a unique recollection of the morning of 6 August and its aftermath, near disbelief at the scale of destruction is a theme that runs through hibakusha testimony.
Tsuboi remembers hearing a loud bang, then being blown into the air and landing 10 metres away. He regained consciousness to find he had been burned over most of his body, his shirtsleeves and trouser legs ripped off by the force of the blast.
“My arms were badly burned and there seemed to be something dripping from my fingertips,” said Tsuboi, who is co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, a nationwide organisation of atomic and hydrogen bomb sufferers.
“My back was incredibly painful, but I had no idea what had just happened. I assumed I had been close to a very large conventional bomb. I had no idea it was a nuclear bomb and that I’d been exposed to radiation. There was so much smoke in the air that you could barely see 100 metres ahead, but what I did see convinced me that I had entered a living hell on earth.
“There were people crying out for help, calling after members of their family. I saw a schoolgirl with her eye hanging out of its socket. People looked like ghosts, bleeding and trying to walk before collapsing. Some had lost limbs.
“There were charred bodies everywhere, including in the river. I looked down and saw a man clutching a hole in his stomach, trying to stop his organs from spilling out. The smell of burning flesh was overpowering.”
He was taken to a hospital, where he remained unconscious for over a month. By the time he came to, a defeated Japan was under the control of the US-led allied occupation. “I had no idea that the war had ended,” he said. “It was difficult to take in.”
Since then Tsuboi has been hospitalised 11 times, including three occasions when doctors told him he was about to die. He takes drugs for several illnesses, including two cancer diagnoses, which he says are connected to his exposure to radiation.
While the A-bomb survivors’ testimony is now a matter of historical record, the hibakusha are trying to ensure that their experiences don’t die with them, at a time when the world is facing nuclear threats from North Korea and Russia.
Earlier this year one of the most active branches of Hidankyo announced it would disband after its members, most of whom are in their 80s and 90s, conceded they were too old to continue their activities.
“In 10 years, I’d be surprised if there are many of us left,” says Hiroshi Shimizu, a Hidankyo official who was three years old when the Hiroshima bomb exploded a mile (1.6km) from his home.
“If the hibakusha continue to speak out against nuclear weapons, then other people will follow suit. That’s why we have to continue our campaign for as long as we are physically able.”
Hiroshima and Kunitachi, a small city in western Tokyo with a small population of A-bomb survivors, have tried to preserve the hibakusha legacy by setting up “storyteller” courses open to people who have no direct experience of the attacks and no A-bomb survivors among their relatives. Hidankyo, meanwhile, has started reaching out to the children and grandchildren of hibakusha.
Last month, Yoshiko Kajimoto, an 84-year-old survivor, recounted her experiences via Skype to dozens of members of the British parliament, and a delegation of hibakusha recently took part in a 24-country “voyage for peace” with the Japanese NGO Peace Boat.
As of August 2014, the number of people recognised as having died from the effects of the two atomic bombs stood at more than 450,000: 292,325 in Hiroshima and 165,409 in Nagasaki, which was bombed three days later. On 15 August, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to a shattered nation.
“I won’t be here in 10 or 15 years’ time, so the question we’re all asking is how to continue sending our message,” said Hiroko Hatakeyama, who was six in 1945.
“I barely have the energy to campaign these days, and I’m no longer scared of dying. But at the same time I realise that it’s our duty as survivors to carry on for as long as possible, to honour the memory of those who are no longer with us.”
Tsuboi, who went on to have three children and seven grandchildren, will make his annual pilgrimage to Hiroshima Peace Park on 6 August. That evening, he will release a lantern along the Motoyasu river – where thousands fled to escape the heat of the nuclear blast – to “guide” the spirits of the dead.
In his role as one of the world’s most active A-bomb survivors, Tsuboi will have a brief conversation with Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, whom he has criticised for attacking the country’s postwar commitment to pacifism.
“On behalf of all A-bomb victims, I will ask him to do everything in his power to rid the world of nuclear weapons,” Tsuboi said. “I will continue to repeat that demand until my last breath.”
First-hand accounts from survivors best convey the bomb’s impact on Hiroshima’s people. The following “Voice of Hibakusha” eyewitness accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima are from the program HIROSHIMA WITNESS produced by the Hiroshima Peace Cultural Center and NHK, the public broadcasting company of Japan.
Mr. Akihiro Takahashi was 14 years old, when the bomb was dropped. He was standing in line with other students of his junior high school, waiting for the morning meeting 1.4 km away from the center. He was under medical treatment for about year and half. And even today black nail grows at his finger tip, where a piece of glass was stuck.
The heat was tremendous . And I felt like my body was burning all over. For my burning body the cold water of the river was as precious as the treasure. Then I left the river, and I walked along the railroad tracks in the direction of my home. On the way, I ran into an another friend of mine, Tokujiro Hatta. I wondered why the soles of his feet were badly burnt. It was unthinkable to get burned there. But it was undeniable fact the soles were peeling and red muscle was exposed. Even I myself was terribly burnt, I could not go home ignoring him. I made him crawl using his arms and knees. Next, I made him stand on his heels and I supported him. We walked heading toward my home repeating the two methods. When we were resting because we were so exhausted, I found my grandfather’s brother and his wife, in other words, great uncle and great aunt, coming toward us. That was quite coincidence. As you know, we have a proverb about meeting Buddha in Hell. My encounter with my relatives at that time was just like that. They seem to be the Buddha to me wandering in the living hell.
Eiko Taoka, then 21, was one of nearly 100 passengers said to have been on board a streetcar that had left Hiroshima Station at a little after 8:00 a.m. and was in a Hatchobori area, 750 m from ground zero, when the bomb fell. Taoka was heading for Funairi with her one year old son to secure wagon in preparation for her move out of the building which was to be evacuated. At 8:15, as the streetcar approached Hatchobori Station, an intense flash and blast engulfed the car, instantly setting it on fire. Taoka’s son died of radiation sickness on August 28. The survival of only ten people on the streetcar have been confirmed to date.
When we were near in Hatchobori and since I had been holding my son in my arms, the young woman in front of me said, ‘I will be getting off here. Please take this seat.’ We were just changing places when there was a strange smell and sound. It suddenly became dark and before I knew it, I had jumped outside.... I held [my son] firmly and looked down on him. He had been standing by the window and I think fragments of glass had pierced his head. His face was a mess because of the blood flowing from his head. But he looked at my face and smiled. His smile has remained glued in my memory. He did not comprehend what had happened. And so he looked at me and smiled at my face which was all bloody. I had plenty of milk which he drank all throughout that day. I think my child sucked the poison right out of my body. And soon after that he died. Yes, I think that he died for me.
Ms. Akiko Takakura was 20 years old when the bomb fell. She was in the Bank of Hiroshima, 300 meters away from the hypocenter. Ms. Takakura miraculously escaped death despite over 100 lacerated wounds on her back. She is one of the few survivors who was within 300 meters of the hypocenter. She now runs a kindergarten and she relates her experience of the atomic bombing to children.
Many people on the street were killed almost instantly. The fingertips of those dead bodies caught fire and the fire gradually spread over their entire bodies from their fingers. A light gray liquid dripped down their hands, scorching their fingers. I, I was so shocked to know that fingers and bodies could be burned and deformed like that. I just couldn’t believe it. It was horrible. And looking at it, it was more than painful for me to think how the fingers were burned, hands and fingers that would hold babies or turn pages, they just, they just burned away. For a few years after the A-bomb was dropped, I was terribly afraid of fire. I wasn’t even able to get close to fire because all my senses remembered how fearful and horrible the fire was, how hot the blaze was, and how hard it was to breathe the hot air. It was really hard to breathe. Maybe because the fire burned all the oxygen, I don’t know. I could not open my eyes enough because of the smoke, which was everywhere. Not only me but everyone felt the same. And my parts were covered with holes.
Odd Arne Westad, Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at Harvard University, said he believed the massive destruction, contamination and humanitarian suffering from the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had an even broader impact by successfully deterring warring nations from using them again for nearly three quarters of a century.
“The world became aware of the terrible consequences and that was very significant. It is remarkable that in the 70 years since Hiroshima, nuclear weapons have never been used again,” he told CNN.
“Most people from 1945 onwards would have expected nuclear weapons to be used in warfare reasonably soon after that, yet almost 60 years of Cold War passed without the use of nuclear weapons. If it hadn’t been for the lessons both the East and the West learned from Hiroshima, I don’t think that would have happened.”
Since 1945, when Japan surrendered to U.S. forces, the nation has essentially based its economy and military on a pacifist constitution.
Recent moves by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling Liberal Democrat Party to change the constitution, specifically Article 9 -- the so-called “Peace clause” have met with civil outrage.
From the flattened ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sprang new cities, each of which are vibrant and active places today. Most of the surviving hibakusha still live in Japan, which to date are numbered at 266,598. At last count in August 2005, the death toll from these atomic weapons stands at 379,776— some from the blast itself, and others from radiation and fallout exposure in the following months and years.
But health problems are not the only difficulties faced by the survivors of the nuclear attacks of 1945. A general lack of knowledge as to the effects of radiation has caused considerable discrimination against these individuals. It seems that a great number of Japanese citizens are under the impression that radiation sickness is contagious or hereditary, causing many communities to ostracize the hibakusha, and causing many employers to refuse to hire the hibakusha or their children even today. Citizens who were able to escape from hell on earth that day evacuated to the suburban areas of Hiroshima City and took refuge at first-aid stations set up in public buildings. However, this provided only momentary relief. They started to die one after another at the first-aid stations, and cremation could not catch up with the rate of death, so many of them had to be buried togeter.
In July of 1952, seven years after the atomic bombing, 252 remains were dug out from five places in Saka township of Aki country, which is situated 8 or 9 kilometers from the hypocenter. In one location, 156 bodies had been buried together in another location, the cremated remains of 36 people had been buried together. This photograph shows the remains in Saka township. In the same year, 43 bodies from a vacant lot which used to be the Yamanaka Girl’s High School in Senda township of Hiroshima City, and 29 bodies from Kanawajima Island off Ujina, Hiroshima City, were also dug up.
Twenty years after the bombing, in the autumn of 1971, humanbones were accidentally found on the grounds of Ninoshima Junior High School on Ninoshima Island, where thousands of A-bomb victims dies. Believing these bones were remains of A-bomb victims, the Hiroshima municipality dug the area for about one month and recovered the remains of 617 bodies.
The remains of A-bomb victims are still being recovered scores of years after the bombing. Hiroshima, Nagasaki and surrounding areas are still the graveyards of the A-bomb victims.
There was nothing burnable left near the hypocenter in Nagasaki around noon August 10th, the day after the bombing. In the report “Air Defense Information And The Extent of Damage Caused by Aerial Attracks” of Nagasaki Prefecture, the scene was descrived this way: “Buildings were almost all burnt down. All the area was reduced to ashes due to the fierce heat, and the casualties are as large in number as ever recorded.”
What is this girl looking for, standing vacantly on the ruins swept by flames for a whole day, where embers are still smoldering? She is probably a student judging from her clothes. Is she at a loss, not finding the place where her house used to be? Her eyes, gazing into the distance, look vacant and exhausted.
At her feet lies a scorched corpse, but she does not even pay attention to it.
This person, the corpse who was squashed down and enveloped in flames in an instant, is so terribly scorched that it is impossible to distinguish if it is male or female. This person must have died screaming.
Meanwhile is this girl, who was lucky enough to escape death, still in good health after 50-odd years, or dose she carry the agony that comes with exposure to residual radioactivity?
In this photograph, the contrast of life and death is vividly shown. It was a sight seen at many places in Nagasaki then.
The peace Statue was completed in 1955 by voluntary money raised from all over Japan. It has been made a custom to hold the Peace Memorial Ceremony by hanging a big curtain in front of the Statue. The photograph shows the 35th Ceremony. The design of the flowers placed in front of the Statue, represents pigeons with their wings outstretched toward the sun. They symbolize the figure is appealing for eternal world peace as well as consoling the souls of the dead.
The A-bomb did not simply and injure masses of people and destroy buildings. It destroyed all the living and the community of the living. The experience Hiroshima and Nagasaki underwent is not confined to damage by war. It represents genocide, the obliteration of the society, and devastation of the environment. Inaddition, it is the first experience in the history mankind which augurs the destruction of the earth.
According to the report made by the U.N. General Secretary in the autumn of 1980. There are 40,000 to 50,000 nuclear weapons stocked in the world today, a number equivalent to one million Hiroshima-type A-bombs.
It is certain that the nuclear weapons stocked today are enough to kill the whole population of the earth dozens of times. Thus, nuclear weapons have the power to hold sway over the fate of mankind, between survival and eradication.
We live in the age of nuclear horror whether we like it or not. Therefore in order to make our own lives secure and to ensure the perpetuation of mankind, we must abolish all nuclear weapons from the earth. Japan is in the forefront of this drive for peace.
The movement against nuclear weapons originated with the “Stockholm Appeal” in 1950. With the threat of the use of A-bombs in the Korean War, which broke out in June of that year, the Appel was promoted world-wide and 500 million signatories were collected. When a hydrogen bomb test was conducted at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954, a Japansese tuna fishing vessel, “Fukuryu Maru No.5”, was covered with “deadly ashes” and Mr. Aikichi Kuboyama, one of the crew, died due to the radiation.
This triggered the signature-collecting movement against atomic and hydrogen bombs all over Japan, and thirty million signatures were collected in a year. This powerfull message was brought into full play in the First World Conference Against A-and H-Bombs held in August, 1955.
A global movement calling for the extinction of nuclear weapons was spearheaded by an organization called NGO and by the nonaligned neutral coungries, which comprise more than two-thirds of the countries in the world. NGO, an organization formed on the basis of Clause 71 of the U.N.Charter, has vigorously impeached the competition for nuclear development by holding the Hiroshima International Forum Commemorating the 30th Anniversary the Atomic Bombing in Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1977 the NGO International Disarmament Conference in February, 1978. NGO has been pointing the way for protecting mankind from nuclear crisis.
Another blobal event to be noted was The U.N. Special Session on Disarmament, held for the first time from May 23 to July 1,1978. This gathering was the result of a joint proposal of the nonaligned nations made to the U.N. General Assembly in the autumn of 1976. Some important resolutions were made in terms of disarmament, including nuclear weapons. A Commitiee of Disarmament (CD) was to be formed with the participation of 35 nuclear and non-nuclear countries. In addition, a week beginning on October 24 every year was designated as “The U.N. Disarmament Week”, a period of time during which each country would highlight the cause of disarmament.
At the 33rd U.N. General Assembly helf in the autumn of that year, the following recommendation was made after the Special Session: (1) The use of nuclear weapons violates the U.N. Charter. (2) An international agreement be made to protect non-nuclear countries. (3) Nuclear weapons must not be deployed in non-nuclear countries. (4) Nuclear tests must not be conducted. (5) An investigation must be made so as to terminate the production of nuclear weapons and nuclear test equipment.
The above recommendation have not been fully carried out. Therefore, it is necessary to mobilize public opinion all over the world. Endeavours for peace should be strengthened so that the second U.N. Special Session on Disarmament to be held in 1982 will be much more successful.
The devil’s weapon made by man must be removed by the wisdom of man. We must strengthen our belief with one another, and define what we can do now and what we must do now. We must gather each and everyone’s efforts into one big force for the abolition of nuclear weapons in order to secure eternal surbibal, prosperity and peace for all mankind.
The stories of the eyewitnesses to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are moving, though disturbing. May humankind never again use these instruments of colossal destruction against its own.
