If you visit Japan’s flourishing city of Hiroshima today, it is hard to imagine it was once a wasteland, the site of the world’s first atomic bomb. I visited it in 2002, and met one of the bomb survivors, who made a powerful impression on me.
Last week was the 75th anniversary of the US military’s bombing of Hiroshima – 6 August 1945 – and it brought back memories of meeting him. No one had ever seen the destruction an atom bomb could cause. The energy it unleashed was so powerful, it flattened the city. Around 65,000 buildings were obliterated and between 120,000 to 200,000 people were killed. There were three killers in the explosion: the massive shock wave that wiped out buildings kilometres from the epicenter; heat between 3000°C to 4000°C which incinerated thousands of people in seconds; radiation that continued to kill for years afterwards. I cannot find the article I wrote about that meeting in 2002, and sadly cannot remember the survivor’s name. The quotes are from memory. It was a scorching day when we met outside Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum. The survivor was 20 when the bomb was dropped, a university student on his way to lectures. He remembered a massive explosion that lifted him off his feet and he lost consciousness. When he came around, it was a nightmare. “The heat was terrible, I felt as if I was burning.” In shock he started running. “I saw a girl running towards me. One of her eyes was out of its socket and was bouncing on her cheek.” As he ran he looked down at his hands. “I saw the flesh was sliding off.” The river filled with people trying to cool their burning flesh. Around them were corpses. It began to rain and people opened their mouths to drink the cooling water. “But it was black rain, radioactive. No one knew.” He was still haunted by the cries of people buried under the rubble, calling for help, but in his traumatised state he kept on running. He had scars on his face, ears and hands. I remember he took my hand and placed it on his bottom. “Feel here,” he said. Through his trousers I felt a hollow where his buttocks should have been. He and other hibakushas – bomb survivors – formed associations that called for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Last year a group submitted a petition with 10 million signatures to the UN that read: “So that the people of future generations will not have to experience hell on earth, we want to realise a world free of nuclear weapons while we are still alive.” Unlikely. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports that there are 13,400 nuclear warheads owned by Russia, USA, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. These nations often claim they need nuclear weapons to make sure “the other side” does not use its nuclear weapons. As US astronomer Carl Sagan responded: “If that’s all it is, then we’ve got to ask: How many nuclear weapons do you need to do that?”
