Hiroshima streetcars continue to serve and educate 80 years after atomic bombing
The affected streetcars have become a symbol of the city's reconstruction, as they resumed operations soon after the blast.
According to the streetcar operator, Hiroshima Electric Railway, the atomic bomb took the lives of 185 employees, which is believed to include 30 students and the staff of a girls vocational school that the company established to address labor shortages during the war.
The bombing also damaged 108 of the company's 123 streetcars, some of which were destroyed. But streetcar service resumed in some sections just three days after the bombing thanks to intense restoration efforts.
According to a publication about the streetcar service's 100-year history, a student from the girls school served as a conductor on a restored streetcar. She recounted how a company official told her not to collect fares from passengers who had no money.
She also recalled various passengers, such as those surprised by the quick resumption of the streetcars and those afraid of passing over steel bridges, as well as people who had burns.
Of the affected streetcars, only four remain now, and two of them are still used during the morning rush hour. One of the two was exposed to the bombing about 700 meters from the hypocenter. Of the remaining two, one is used for events and the other is currently idle.
Seishichi Masuoka (left), an atomic bomb survivor, shares his experiences inside a streetcar that survived the bombing, on July 27 in the city of Hiroshima. |
Jiji
On July 27, two affected streetcars were used for a peace education program hosted by organizations including the Hiroshima Institute for Peace Education, which comprises mainly schoolteachers.
During the program, about 90 participants aboard the streetcars, including elementary school students and their parents, toured sites such as the Atomic Bomb Dome while listening to testimonies by hibakusha atomic bomb survivors.
"The left half of my body was burned, and I still have burn scars 80 years later," said 94-year-old Seishichi Masuoka, who was about 1 kilometer from the hypocenter at the time of the bombing. "I ran away thinking, 'I don't want to die.'"
"We must cherish life," Masuoka told the participants, including children, who had serious expressions on their faces. "For that, we must eliminate wars and maintain peace."
The surviving streetcars still have many original parts, including their chassis and motors.
"They are valuable vehicles that tell us about the atomic bombing," said a Hiroshima Electric Railway public relations official. "We want to use them carefully and keep them in service for as long as possible so they continue to convey the reality of the atomic bombing."
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