Blinding light, sick burning smell: Hiroshima nuke bomb survivors share horror stories of survival being a burden

Time of India

06-08-2025

At 8:15 a.m. on 6 August 1945,
Hiroshima
was hit by an atomic bomb dropped by a US aircraft. The blast wiped out much of the city in seconds. Tens of thousands died instantly; many more followed in the weeks and months ahead. By the end of that year, the death toll had risen to an estimated 140,000.
Decades later, Hiroshima still marks that moment in silence. The survivors, most now elderly, recall the nearly blinding light, the ash, the sickening smell of burning. For them, survival wasn't a comfort, it was a burden. It was the start of something heavier: life under the weight of radiation and grief.
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They're known as hibakusha, and their testimony is direct. Some lost entire families. Others bore wounds that never healed. Many lived with suspicion, discrimination, and long-term illness. Their stories are not history lessons, they're warnings.
This year, 55,000 people gathered in Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park to mark the anniversary. There were prayers, speeches, tears. The message was as clear as it was familiar: never again. But saying it doesn't mean the world's listening.
A Mayor's blunt warning
Mayor Kazumi Matsui didn't soften his words.
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"Among the world's political leaders, there is a growing belief that possessing nuclear weapons is unavoidable in order to protect their own countries," he said.
"This situation not only nullifies the lessons the international community has learned from the tragic history of the past, but also seriously undermines the frameworks that have been built for peace-building."
He urged world leaders to visit Hiroshima, to witness the consequences themselves.
The first to see the aftermath
On 29 August 1945, weeks after the blast,
ICRC
delegate Fritz Bilfinger arrived in Hiroshima. He was the first foreigner to witness the devastation. The very next day, he sent an urgent telegram to Geneva.
What followed was the swift arrival of Dr Marcel Junod, head of the ICRC delegation in Japan, who helped organise emergency relief. Japanese
Red Cross Society
medical teams, some working from tents, treated over 31,000 injured in the first three weeks.
Their efforts were a lifeline in a city reduced to ash and silence.
Survivors are still talking. But not for long?
The number of survivors is shrinking. Most are in their 80s or 90s now. This year, Japan officially recorded fewer than 100,000 survivors.
Minoru Suzuto
, 94, was one of them at the ceremony. "There will be nobody left to pass on this sad and painful experience in 10 years or 20 years," he told AP.
"That's why I want to share (my story) as much as I can."
Their voices carry urgency. They know time is short. And memory fades fast when it's inconvenient.
Japan's double bind
Prime Minister
Shigeru Ishiba
called the current global security situation "increasingly severe."
"The divisions within the international community over nuclear disarmament are deepening," he said.
And yet, Japan still hasn't signed or ratified the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Officially, it says it relies on the US nuclear umbrella.
Mayor Matsui, again, was clearer: Tokyo should sign the treaty. Ishiba didn't mention it at all.
The politics of nuclear justification
Some survivors were angered by recent rhetoric coming out of the United States. In particular, comments made by Donald Trump after a 2023 strike on Iran, when he likened it to Hiroshima.
"It's ridiculous," said 79-year-old survivor Kosei Mito.
"I don't think we can get rid of nuclear weapons as long as it was justified by the assailant."
Nihon Hidankyo
, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning survivors' group, said: "We don't have much time left, while we face a greater nuclear threat than ever. Our biggest challenge now is to change, even just a little, nuclear weapons states that give us the cold shoulder."
Nagasaki: The second nuclear bomb
Three days after Hiroshima, another bomb fell on Nagasaki. This one used plutonium. It killed 70,000 people. Japan surrendered six days later. World War II ended. The nuclear era began.
A Growing Stockpile
Nine countries now have nuclear weapons: the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.
Together, they have over 12,000 warheads. Nearly all are expanding their arsenals.
China is building fast, adding around 100 warheads each year. The US and Russia still hold over 90 percent of the total. The UK and India are increasing theirs. North Korea remains aggressive.
The Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons. The largest in the US arsenal is 1.2 megatons. That's eighty times more powerful.
Doomsday clock ticks closer to midnight
In January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight. Closer than ever.
"Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger," it warned.
Their concerns? Nuclear conflict. Climate collapse.
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. But nuclear risk still tops the list.
Hans Kristensen from SIPRI put it plainly: "We see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements."
Postwar Japan renounced war in its constitution. Article 9 was clear. No military force. Only a Self-Defence Force.
But that's shifting. Fast.
Japan now has one of the world's highest military budgets. Politicians are openly discussing rewriting the constitution. Younger generations fear threats from China, Russia and North Korea.
Some still believe in pacifism. Others call it naive.
The River that still carries the light
Every year on 6 August, lanterns float on the Motoyasu River. Bells toll. Crowds cry.
Kazuo Miyoshi
, 74, was among them. He came to honour family — a grandfather and two cousins lost in the bombing.
"We do not need nuclear weapons," he said. "Mistakes like that must not be repeated."
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement, read aloud during the ceremony: "Remembering the past is about protecting and building peace today and in the future."
The A-Bomb Dome still stands. Cracked, blackened, but there. Surrounded by parks, office buildings, tourists. A scar in the middle of daily life.
It says: this happened and it could happen again.
The physical scars of the bomb may have faded from the landscape, but its effects remain, in the health of those exposed, in the trauma carried forward, and in the global conversation that still hesitates to turn memory into policy.