‘Children like me had to carry bodies': Japan A-bomb survivors urge world not to forget 80 years on

Independent

09-08-2025

She was only eight when she saw people with their skin peeling off, faces swollen beyond recognition, stumbling through a city in flames. For Keiko Ogura, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the morning of 6 August 1945 was the day her childhood ended.
She remembers the moment the bomb fell: Hiroshima flattened in an instant, as if a giant had stomped the city into the ground. 'Buildings were crushed, and fires broke out everywhere. That night, Hiroshima burned. The entire city kept burning through the night.'
Ogura's family had moved a year earlier to the far side of a small hill just outside the city centre – a decision, made by her father to avoid air raids, that ultimately saved their lives. The hill stood between their home and the bomb's hypocentre, shielding them from the full force of the blast.
Scenes of horror surrounded Ogura in the days after the bombing. Survivors had leapt into Hiroshima's seven rivers to escape the fires, but many drowned or died from their injuries. She remembers the waterways choked with bodies – some drifting downstream, others washing back with the tide, missing limbs and swarmed by flies.
Mass cremations became part of daily life. In front of her home alone, her father cremated around 700 people. 'Even children like me had to help carry bodies on straw mats,' she recalled in a video published by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
Nearly eight decades later, those memories remain vivid – etched with scenes of unbearable pain and incalculable loss.
For Ogura, they are more than personal recollections. They are warnings. Warnings, she says, that the world must never allow itself to forget.
Hiroshima Day, observed each year on 6 August, commemorates one of the most devastating moments in human history – the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the United States in 1945, during the final days of World War Two.
That morning, a US B-29 bomber named Enola Gay dropped a uranium-based atomic bomb, nicknamed 'Little Boy', which detonated about 600 metres above the city.
The explosion unleashed a ferocious blast, scorching heat, and lethal radiation, instantly killing 70,000 to 80,000 people.
In the days and months that followed, tens of thousands more died from injuries and radiation sickness. The city was flattened, and survivors – known as Hibakusha – endured long-term health effects and unimaginable psychological trauma.
Three days later, on 9 August, the US dropped a second bomb, 'Fat Man,' over Nagasaki. These bombings marked the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war and led to Japan 's surrender on 15 August 1945, bringing World War Two to an end.
The atomic bombings killed more than 210,000 people.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki stand as lasting reminders not only of the immense human tragedy that unfolded, but of the profound danger nuclear weapons pose to humanity in today's fractured world. In the years since 1945, survivors, activists, and global leaders have repeatedly invoked the devastation as a stark plea for disarmament and a cautionary lesson for generations to come.
Last year, survivors of the bombings said that receiving the Nobel Peace Prize had renewed their determination to campaign for nuclear disarmament.
'I felt like I needed to work even harder on what I had done so far,' Terumi Tanaka, who survived the atomic attack on Nagasaki, told the Associated Press at the time.
Tanaka, 93, spoke at a press conference in Tokyo last year following his return from Oslo, where he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo, the organisation of Japanese atomic bomb survivors.
'I believe it is important to focus on the next 10 years and strengthen the movement moving forward,' he added. 'I would like to lead a big movement of testimonials.' On Monday, Tanaka told the press: 'I believe a nuclear war could happen in the near future. Most young people today may not know how many nuclear weapons exist. There are 12,000 nuclear warheads.'
He added: 'One warhead is 2,000 times more powerful than the bombs 80 years ago.'
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings – a poignant milestone for survivors and campaigners alike.
Last year, Michiko Kodama, who survived the Hiroshima bombing, said: 'We hibakusha (survivors) who saw the hell... within a decade won't be around to tell the reality of the atomic bombing. I want to keep telling our stories as long as we live.'
Kodama was seven years old in August 1945.
'I saw an extremely strong light coming in from the window. It was white, or shall I say yellow? So strong that I couldn't keep my eyes open,' another survivor, Fumi Takeshita, 80, remembered.
'It was the day after the bomb dropped. (My father) walked through the hypocenter, the Urakami area, and heard many people calling for help. There were heaps of bodies, too. Buildings were crashed to the ground and there was nothing left, apparently. I heard that from my grandmother. She said, 'Fumi-chan, remember the light you saw the other day? Because of that, there is nothing left in Urakami, and many people died'.'
While Takeshita painfully recalls the devastation in the aftermath of the atomic bombing, other survivors have also borne the weight of their memories for decades.
Despite battling numerous health issues, 83-year-old survivor Kunihiko Iida has dedicated his retirement to sharing his story in the hope of advancing the cause of nuclear disarmament.
Iida now volunteers as a guide at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park, determined to raise awareness among foreign visitors, who he believes often lack a full understanding of the bombings.
Iida tried to scream, 'Mommy, help!' on that day in August 1945, but no sound came out, he recalled. He was eventually rescued by his grandfather.
Within a month, his 25-year-old mother and four-year-old sister died after suffering nosebleeds, skin problems, and extreme fatigue – symptoms of radiation exposure. Iida experienced similar effects throughout elementary school but slowly recovered.
It wasn't until he was nearly 60 that he returned to the peace park at the bombing site. His elderly aunt asked him to go with her, and he finally agreed. It was his first visit since that day.
'The only path to peace is nuclear weapons' abolishment. There is no other way,' Iida says.
With each passing year, as the hibakusha survivors grow older, their warnings also feel more urgent. As of 31 March 2025, Japan 's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported that there were only 99,130 people officially recognised as hibakusha.
Their calls for a nuclear-free world have yet to be realised.
Instead, rising global tensions have brought back fears of a nuclear war. Just recently, US president Donald Trump said he ordered the deployment of nuclear submarines near Russia in response to what he described as threatening remarks from Moscow.
In 2024, nearly all nine nuclear-armed states – the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel – continued to pursue extensive nuclear modernisation programmes, upgrading existing arsenals and developing newer, more advanced weapons, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
'As of January 2025, an estimated 12,241 nuclear warheads existed worldwide, with approximately 9,614 held in military stockpiles and available for potential use,' the report said.
In March 2023, Russia announced plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus – marking the first time it has stationed such arms outside its borders since the Soviet Union's collapse.
While not an outright breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), critics contended that, much like Nato's nuclear sharing arrangements, the move undermines the treaty's spirit. Then, in November 2024, Russian president Vladimir Putin approved revisions to Russia's nuclear doctrine – changes that, according to many analysts, appeared to lower the threshold for potential nuclear use.
Last year in November, North Korea's UN envoy said that the country has vowed to accelerate its nuclear weapons programme after testing an intercontinental ballistic missile, citing threats from the US. Kim Song, North Korea's ambassador to the UN, said during a security council meeting that Pyongyang would accelerate the programme to 'counter any threat presented by hostile nuclear weapons states'.
Last month, it was reported that China is expanding its nuclear arsenal faster than any other country, with at least 600 warheads now in its stockpile and about 100 being added annually since 2023, according to the SIPRI.
The SIPRI report also mentioned that Israel, though it does not officially acknowledge having nuclear weapons, is believed to be modernising its arsenal. In 2024, the report said it tested a missile propulsion system likely linked to its nuclear-capable Jericho ballistic missiles, and satellite imagery suggested ongoing upgrades at its Dimona plutonium production facility.
The report noted: 'Russia and the USA together possess around 90 per cent of all nuclear weapons. The sizes of their respective military stockpiles (ie useable warheads) seem to have stayed relatively stable in 2024, but both states are implementing extensive modernisation programmes that could increase the size and diversity of their arsenals in the future.'
'The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the cold war, is coming to an end,' said Hans M Kristensen, associate senior fellow with SIPRI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme and director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
'Instead, we see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements.'
Tanaka of Nihon Hidankyo told the media on Monday: 'There are 3,000 to 4,000 ready-to-use nuclear warheads that leaders can launch instantly. Accidental launches can also happen. That's the world we all live in. If that happens, young people will lose their future. I want to tell young people to think about this.'
So on 6 August, when the world holds events and talks of nuclear disarmament and a future free of atomic weapons, the question still looms: Have the powers that be deliberately made nuclear disarmament a distant dream in today's world? Is the dream of a nuclear-free world further out of reach?
And in the process, are we beginning to forget the horrors that hibakusha like Keiko Ogura endured?
On Monday, Norwegian Nobel Committee chair Jorgen Frydnes said: 'I don't think fear (of nuclear weapons) is the solution to our problems. The hibakusha clearly shows that it is possible, even though in a situation of pain, sorrow, (and) grief, to choose peace, and that's the message we want the world to listen to.'
Frydnes visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki last week, ahead of the 80th anniversaries of the atomic bombings.
'Their story is also a story of memory becoming a force for change,' he said.