Remembering the ‘unspeakable horrors' 80 years after US dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki
The first on August 6, 1945 killed around 140,000 people in Hiroshima and three days later another 74,000 perished in Nagasaki.
Here are some facts about the devastating attacks:
(FILES) This photo obtained from the US Air Force dated August 1945 shows the crew of the B-29 bomber "Enola Gay" including pilot Paul W. Tibbets (centre), who named the aircraft after his mother, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War II. — AFP pic
The bombs
The first atomic bomb was dropped on the western city of Hiroshima by the US bomber Enola Gay, nicknamed 'Little Boy'.
It detonated about 600 metres from the ground, with a force equivalent to 15,000 tonnes of TNT.
Tens of thousands died instantly, while others succumbed to injuries or illness in the weeks, months and years that followed.
Three days later the US dropped a second bomb, dubbed 'Fat Man', on the southern city of Nagasaki.
The attacks remain the only time atomic bombs have been used in wartime.
This file photo from the US Air Force taken in August 1945 shows Maj. Theodore Van Kirk (L), navigator, Col. Paul Tibbets (C), pilot, and Maj. Thomas Ferebee, bombardier, after dropping the first atom bomb on Japan. — AFP pic
The attacks
In Hiroshima, the first thing people noticed was an 'intense ball of fire', according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Temperatures near the blast reached an estimated 7,000 degrees Celsius, which incinerated everything within a radius of about three kilometres.
'I remember the charred bodies of little children lying around the hypocentre area like black rocks,' Koichi Wada, a witness who was 18 at the time of the Nagasaki attack, has said of the bombing.
ICRC experts say there were cases of temporary or permanent blindness due to the intense flash of light, and subsequent related damage such as cataracts.
A whirlwind of heat generated also ignited thousands of fires that ravaged large parts of the mostly wooden city. A firestorm that consumed all available oxygen caused more deaths by suffocation.
It has been estimated that burn- and fire-related casualties accounted for more than half of the immediate deaths in Hiroshima.
The explosion generated an enormous shock wave that blew people through the air. Others were crushed to death inside collapsed buildings or injured or killed by flying debris.
A photo dated September 1945 of the remains of the Prefectural Industry Promotion Building after the bombing of Hiroshima, which was later preserved as a monument. — AFP pic
Radiation effects
Radiation sickness was reported in the aftermath by many who survived the initial blasts and firestorms.
Acute symptoms included vomiting, headaches, nausea, diarrhoea, haemorrhaging and hair loss, with radiation sickness fatal for many within a few weeks or months.
Survivors, known as 'hibakusha', also experienced longer-term effects including elevated risks of thyroid cancer and leukaemia, and both Hiroshima and Nagasaki have seen elevated cancer rates.
Of 50,000 radiation victims from both cities studied by the Japanese-US Radiation Effects Research Foundation, about 100 died of leukaemia and 850 suffered from radiation-induced cancers.
The group found no evidence however of a 'significant increase' in serious birth defects among survivors' children.
This photo taken in 1948 shows a view of the devastated city of Hiroshima in Japan, three years after the first atomic bomb was dropped on a population. — AFP pic
The aftermath
The twin bombings dealt the final blow to imperial Japan, which surrendered on August 15, 1945, bringing an end to World War II.
Historians have debated whether the bombings ultimately saved lives by bringing an end to the conflict and averting a ground invasion.
But those calculations meant little to survivors, many of whom battled decades of physical and psychological trauma, as well as the stigma that sometimes came with being a hibakusha.
Despite their suffering, many survivors were shunned — in particular for marriage — because of prejudice over radiation exposure.
Survivors and their supporters have become some of the loudest and most powerful voices opposing nuclear weapons, including meeting world leaders to press their case.
Last year, the Japanese anti-nuclear group Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of hibakusha, won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 2019, Pope Francis met several hibakusha in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, decrying the 'unspeakable horror' and calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
In 2016, Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima. He offered no apology for the attack, but embraced survivors and called for a world free of nuclear weapons.
Russia is one of around 100 countries expected to attend this year's memorial in Nagasaki, the first time Moscow has been invited to commemorations in the city since the start of the war with Ukraine. — AFP
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Malay Mail
2 days ago
- Malay Mail
Decades later, Korean survivors of WWII atomic bombs still carry the scars, and the silence
HAPCHEON, Aug 6 — Bae Kyung-mi was five years old when the Americans dropped 'Little Boy', the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Like thousands of other ethnic Koreans working in the city at the time, her family kept the horror a secret. Many feared the stigma from doing menial work for colonial ruler Japan, and false rumours that radiation sickness was contagious. Bae recalls hearing planes overhead while she was playing at her home in Hiroshima on that day. Within minutes, she was buried in rubble. 'I told my mom in Japanese, 'Mom! There are airplanes!'' Bae, now 85, told AFP. She passed out shortly after. This photo taken on June 26, 2025 shows Kim Hwa-ja (front left), an ethnic Korean who is also an atomic bomb survivor, or 'hibakusha', and Kwon Joon-oh (2nd left), whose mother and father were also survivors, as they visit the 'Monument in Memory of the Korean Victims of the A-bomb', following an interview with AFP near the Peace Park Memorial in the city of Hiroshima, Hiroshima prefecture. — AFP pic Her home collapsed on top of her, but the debris shielded her from the burns that killed tens of thousands of people — including her aunt and uncle. After the family moved back to Korea, they did not speak of their experience. 'I never told my husband that I was in Hiroshima and a victim of the bombing,' Bae said. 'Back then, people often said you had married the wrong person if he or she was an atomic bombing survivor.' Her two sons only learned she had been in Hiroshima when she registered at a special centre set up in 1996 in Hapcheon in South Korea for victims of the bombings, she said. Bae said she feared her children would suffer from radiation-related illnesses that afflicted her, forcing her to have her ovaries and a breast removed because of the high cancer risk. This photo taken in Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang, shows Lee Bu-yul, 87, a survivor of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II, posing in front of a traditional structure holding 1,172 wooden plaques bearing the names of deceased victims behind the Hapcheon Atomic Bomb Victim Welfare Center. Lee was seven at the time of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and his mother died within one year of it. — AFP pic A burning city She knew why she was getting sick, but did not tell her own family. 'We all hushed it up,' she said. Some 740,000 people were killed or injured in the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More than 10 per cent of the victims were Korean, data suggests, the result of huge flows of people to Japan while it colonised the Korean peninsula. Survivors who stayed in Japan found they had to endure discrimination both as hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivors, and as Koreans. Many Koreans also had to choose between pro-Pyongyang and pro-Seoul groups in Japan, after the peninsula was left divided by the 1950-53 Korean War. Kwon Joon-oh's mother and father both survived the attack on Hiroshima. Bae Kyung-mi was five years old when the Americans dropped 'Little Boy', the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Some 740,000 people were killed or injured in the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nakasaki which ended World War II — and more than 10 per cent of the victims were Korean, data suggests, the result of huge flows of people to Japan while it colonised the Korean peninsula. — AFP pic The 76-year-old's parents, like others of their generation, could only work by taking on 'filthy and dangerous jobs' that the Japanese considered beneath them, he said. Korean victims were also denied an official memorial for decades, with a cenotaph for them put up in the Hiroshima Peace Park only in the late 1990s. Kim Hwa-ja was four on August 6, 1945 and remembers being put on a makeshift horse-drawn trap as her family tried to flee Hiroshima after the bomb. Smoke filled the air and the city was burning, she said, recalling how she peeped out from under a blanket covering her, and her mother screaming at her not to look. Korean groups estimate that up to 50,000 Koreans may have been in the city that day, including tens of thousands working as forced labourers at military sites. This photo shows residents preparing to have their portraits taken for use at their funerals at the Hapcheon Atomic Bomb Victim Welfare Center. — AFP pic Stigma But records are sketchy. 'The city office was devastated so completely that it wasn't possible to track down clear records,' a Hiroshima official told AFP. Japan's colonial policy banned the use of Korean names, further complicating record-keeping. After the attacks, tens of thousands of Korean survivors moved back to their newly-independent country. But many have struggled with health issues and stigma ever since. 'In those days, there were unfounded rumours that radiation exposure could be contagious,' said Jeong Soo-won, director of the country's Hapcheon Atomic Bomb Victim Center. This photo shows Korean Red Cross secretary-general Kang Soohan opening the doors to a traditional structure holding wooden plaques bearing the names of deceased victims behind the Hapcheon Atomic Bomb Victim Welfare Center. — AFP pic Nationwide, there are believed to be some 1,600 South Korean survivors still alive, Jeong said. Eighty-two live at the centre. Seoul enacted a special law in 2016 to help the survivors — including a monthly stipend of around US$72 — but it provides no assistance to their offspring or extended families. 'There are many second- and third-generation descendants affected by the bombings and suffering from congenital illnesses,' said Jeong. A provision to support them 'must be included' in future, he said. A Japanese hibakusha group won the Nobel Peace Prize last year in recognition of their efforts to show the world the horrors of nuclear war. But 80 years after the attacks, many survivors in Japan and Korea say the world has not learned. This photo shows Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor Bae Kyung-mi reaching out while visiting a traditional structure holding wooden plaques bearing the names of deceased victims behind the Hapcheon Atomic Bomb Victim Welfare Center. — AFP pic 'Only talk' US President Donald Trump recently compared his strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 'Would he understand the tragedy of what the Hiroshima bombing has caused? Would he understand that of Nagasaki?' survivor Kim Gin-ho said. In Korea, the Hapcheon centre will hold a commemoration on August 6 — with survivors hoping that this year the event will attract more attention. From politicians, 'there has been only talk... but no interest', she said. — AFP
Free Malaysia Today
3 days ago
- Free Malaysia Today
My classmate became a fountain of blood, Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor recounts
Atomic bomb survivor Katsuko Kuwamoto shares her testimony with visitors at the Hiroshima Peace Hall. HIROSHIMA : Katsuko Kuwamoto was born in 1939, into a country already Katsuko Kuwamoto was born in 1939, into a country already at war with the world. By the time she entered elementary school in April 1945, her father had already been sent to the battlefield, swallowed by a war that devoured men as quickly as it starved women and children. Families were left with only mothers, children, grandparents and little else. 'We didn't have food. I was always hungry,' she recalled. One month into her first school year, the children were ordered to evacuate from central Hiroshima. Firebombing had already reduced other cities, including Tokyo, to cinders. Katsuko and her older sister were sent to their aunt's farm on the edge of the city. 'There were already four other families packed into the house. One family lived in the barn. Another in the tool shed. Everyone was hungry. Everyone was angry. 'When food went missing, the blame always came to us. We had no parents with us. No one to defend us.' Still, every Saturday, Katsuko and her sister made the long walk home to see their mother in the city. They would stay one night and return to their aunt's on Sunday evening. 'We cried. We begged her to let us stay. We said: 'Even if a bomb drops on us and we die, we want to die here with you.'' But fate, disguised as well-meaning neighbours, intervened. 'Our neighbours told us: 'If a bomb falls, your mother won't be able to escape with two children.' So we went back to the farm. That was the afternoon of Aug 5, 1945.' The next morning, Katsuko got up like it was any other school day. She made her way to class, unaware that a US bomber had already crossed the sky. By then, the city had grown used to the sound of American bombers. When the air raid sirens blared, people took cover. But that day, there were no sirens or warnings. Just the low thrum of a B-29 heavy bomber. That morning, with the adult male population sent to the front, children were mobilised to labour outside, tasked with demolition work, dismantling homes and making firebreaks. As the school bell rang, Katsuko stepped into her classroom. One of her classmates was playing by the window. Above their heads, something shimmered. A metallic glint against the morning sky, tumbling and spinning while the children outside stared. Many children were working outdoors to fill the wartime labour shortage when the bomb dropped, as shown in this survivor's drawing. At 8.15am, the atomic bomb detonated. Ten seconds later, a deafening boom split the city apart. The shockwave shattered the windows of the school, 3.5km from the hypocentre. 'My classmate who was playing by the window was shredded by shards of glass. Her blood sprayed like a fountain. 'The teacher picked her up in his arms and ran around the schoolyard in a panic. His face was pale, distorted with suffering.' The children didn't understand what had happened. They clung onto their teacher's clothes and followed. Katsuko's aunt arrived soon after and took them home. The students working outside that morning weren't as lucky. They were incinerated instantly. All that remained were their shadows, scorched into the ground as memorials to lives cut short. The search for mother That same morning, Katsuko's mother stayed home, 1.3km from ground zero, feeling slightly unwell. She was eating a late breakfast when the bomb fell. In an instant, the blast crushed the house around her. Trapped under splintered beams, she screamed until a neighbour clawed through the debris to rescue her. Worried about their mother, Katsuko's cousin offered to go look for her, armed only with a rucksack and a water bottle. But he was back in under ten minutes. The firestorms and the terrain made it impossible to reach the city. Three days passed before the flames quieted. Katsuko, her sister, and their aunt finally entered the city. When the smoke finally lifted, what lay beneath was nothing short of a hell made of bone and ash. 'We saw dead bodies everywhere. We couldn't even make out where the houses and fields had been. We found nothing but charred corpses,' Katsuko said. Eyewitnesses recalled seeing victims with their skin peeling from their fingertips, trailing like rags. 'Even the ones who were still alive, you couldn't tell if they were men or women. Their faces were swollen one and a half times the normal size. Their clothes had burned off.' After hours of searching, they turned back defeated. Nearly a week after the bomb fell, Katsuko's mother came to them on foot, through the radioactive rain and ruins. 'She looked okay at first, but her face was pale. So pale it was blue. I've never seen such colour on a person's face before. She tried to talk but just vomited blood.' Residents of Hiroshima called the bomb 'Pikadon' — 'pika' for the flash, 'don' for the boom. No one yet understood the bomb's true radioactive nature. 'She was dying. But then our father came home from the war, and they had the same blood type. There was a rumour that blood transfusion might help. So he gave his blood to her, every day.' Months later, in early winter, Katsuko and her sister were playing outside when they saw a figure on a bicycle. It was their father. On the back, their mother was alive, smiling. 'They told us every day that she would die the next day, but she lived. The rumour that blood transfusion helped was true.' But in the years that followed, her mother's body began to fail. She developed breast cancer, then lung cancer, and eventually tumours in her brain, to which she later succumbed. The long war The war officially ended on Aug 15, 1945, but the aftermath lasted decades. Food shortages continued, forcing families to sell their prized kimonos for rice. School resumed outdoors as there were no buildings. When it rained, classes were cancelled. Around 80,000 people were incinerated in an instant by the bomb. Estimates say nearly 200,000 had died later from its lingering effects. Even after witnessing the destruction of her city and the loss of friends, neighbours, and family, Katsuko, like so many survivors, chose not to hold hatred toward the Americans. 'None of my family members were seriously injured by the bomb itself, but we never received any compensation from the US. 'I didn't feel any resentment. Later on, I went to a missionary school. My teachers were American. They were kind people and good teachers. There's no use in hating them.' At 86, Katsuko believes the key to a long life isn't holding on to anger, but rising early, walking her dog and continuing to speak. What drives her is the hope that through awareness and testimony, others might finally understand the human toll of war. 'We've had more visitors from the US lately. It seems the belief that the bomb was a necessary evil is fading, even in the US. 'We should never have war again. There's nothing more stupid than war.'
The Star
3 days ago
- The Star
Hiroshima marks 80 years as US-Russia nuclear tensions rise
HIROSHIMA: Japan marked 80 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Wednesday (Aug 6) with a ceremony reminding the world of the horrors unleashed, as sabre-rattling between the United States and Russia keeps the nuclear "Doomsday Clock" close to midnight. A silent prayer was held at 8:15am (2315 GMT), the moment when US aircraft Enola Gay dropped "Little Boy" over the western Japanese city on Aug 6, 1945. On a sweltering morning, hundreds of black-clad officials, students and survivors laid flowers at the memorial cenotaph, with the ruins of a domed building in the background, a stark reminder of the horrors that unfolded. In a speech, Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui warned of "an accelerating trend toward military buildup around the world", against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the chaos in the Middle East. "These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history," he said. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it was Japan's mission "to take the lead... toward a world without nuclear weapons". People praying in front of the cenotaph for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing, at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on Aug 6, 2025. - Reuters The final death toll of the Hiroshima attack would hit around 140,000 people, killed not just by the colossal blast and the ball of fire, but also later by the radiation. Three days after "Little Boy", on Aug 9, another atomic bomb killed 74,000 people in Nagasaki. Imperial Japan surrendered on Aug 15, bringing an end to World War II. Today, Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million but the attacks live on in the memories of many. On the eve of the ceremony, people began lining up to pay their respects to the victims in front of the cenotaph. Before dawn on Wednesday, families who lost loved ones in the attack also came to pray. Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, who arrived in a wheelchair with her grandson, told reporters that her parents and grandparents were bomb victims. "My grandfather died soon after the bombing, while my father and mother both died after developing cancer. My parents-in-law also died, so my husband couldn't see them again when he came back from battlefields after the war. "People are still suffering," she added. Wednesday's ceremony was set to include a record of around 120 countries and regions including, for the first time, Taiwanese and Palestinian representatives. The United States -- which has never formally apologised for the bombings -- was represented by its ambassador to Japan. Russia and China were absent. Nihon Hidankyo, the grassroots organisation that last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, is representing the dwindling number of survivors, known as hibakusha. As of March, there were 99,130 hibakusha, according to the Japanese health ministry, with the average age of 86. "I want foreign envoys to visit the peace memorial museum and understand what happened," the group's co-chair Toshiyuki Mimaki told local media ahead of the commemorations. Pope Leo XIV said in a statement that "in our time of mounting global tensions and conflicts", Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained "living reminders of the profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons". United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that "the very weapons that brought such devastation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are once again being treated as tools of coercion". The attacks remain the only time atomic bombs have been used in wartime. Kunihiko Sakuma, 80, who survived the blasts as a baby, told AFP he was hopeful that there could eventually be a nuclear-free world. "The younger generation is working hard for that end," he said ahead of the ceremony. But in January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' "Doomsday Clock" shifted to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest in its 78-year history. The clock symbolising humanity's distance from destruction was last moved to 90 seconds to midnight over Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia and the United States account for around 90 per cent of the world's over 12,000 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). SIPRI warned in June that "a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened," with nearly all of the nine nuclear-armed states modernising their arsenals. Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump said that he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines following an online spat with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. - AFP
