People in Nagasaki strive to make the city the last A-bombed place on Earth
Tanaka has been taking part in a sit-in rally on the ninth day of every month to speak out against nuclear arms, continuing to wish for a world without atomic weapons or war.
On the morning of Aug. 9, 1945, a U.S. atomic bomb was detonated above Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m., engulfing the city in heat rays and a blast.
"A town lit by the blazing sun and buzzing with cicadas suddenly turned dusky and quiet in an instant," Tanaka recalled. By the end of that year, approximately 74,000 people had died in Nagasaki.
"Even if your parents may nag you by telling you the same things over and over, cherish your family who have kept you alive," Tanaka told me, with a gentle look on his face.
Chiyoko Iwanaga, 89, who experienced the atomic bombing, offers prayers at a church every Sunday. On that fateful day, she was exposed to the flash and blast from the bomb about 11 kilometers southwest of the hypocenter, while she was in the former village of Fukahori, now part of the city of Nagasaki. Although she was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder in her 50s, Iwanaga has not been officially recognized as a hibakusha because she was outside a zone subject to public relief designated by the national government.
While Iwanaga has sought government relief for many years, her pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Others in the same situation have passed away one after the other, saying they became ill because of the atomic bomb.
"I'm carrying a heavy cross on my back," she said. "Humans are vulnerable and anyone can make mistakes. If every individual can accept that, I believe conflicts would disappear." Her wishes for peace only grow stronger.
Eighty years have passed since the end of WWII, and fewer people remain who lived through it. Meanwhile, it is not just humans who can tell the stories of the damage from the atomic bombing.
Kenichi Kubota, 58, a tree doctor, has continued an annual survey of trees that were exposed to the radiation in Nagasaki alongside members of the Nagasaki Prefecture branch of the Japan Tree Doctors Association, in an effort to preserve them for future generations.
About 50 trees are examined in the survey, with each of their records kept in medical charts, just like for human patients.
"As electric wires and houses have increased, these trees can no longer spread their branches freely like they did before the war. By shaping them in ways suited to the present time, we hope to allow those trees, our 'teachers' who experienced the war, to live out their lives," Kubota said.
What all these efforts have in common is a desire to make Nagasaki "the last place on Earth to have suffered an atomic bombing." The areas around the hypocenter, once reduced to scorched ruins, are now filled with condominiums and schools, and bustling with people passing by. The people of Nagasaki continue their efforts in hopes that the cityscape will remain peaceful over the decades to come, even 100 or 150 years after the war.
(Japanese original by Kaho Kitayama, Kyushu Photo and Video Department)
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