Facts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a girl Sadako Sasaki


On August 6 & 9 of 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by two nuclear bombs.

It is estimated that 280,000 people were killed.

This is the only time that nuclear weapons have been used in war, which is lucky because modern nuclear weapons would be even more destructive. A single warhead from the the UK's Trident system is around 8 times more powerful than the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima. Each missile contains three warheads. A submarine containing up to 16 missiles is constantly on patrol.

Why were Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed?
Many reasons have been suggested as to why the US administration decided to wipe out these two Japanese cities. Some of the most plausible are:

  • The United States wanted to force Japan's surrender as quickly as possible to minimize American casualties.
  • They wished to use the atomic bomb before the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan to establish US dominance afterwards
  • They felt they needed to test this new technology for an actual attack and observe its destructive effects on the population.

What we know for certain is that the US was in quite a hurry. Only 9 days after successfully testing history's first  atomic explosion (at Trinity, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945) the order to drop the bomb on Japan was issued.



The impact of the bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Hiroshima stands on a flat river delta, with few hills to shelter the the city. This was part of the reason the Hiroshima was targeted - the flat terrain made it easier to assess the effects of the attack. The bomb was dropped on the city centre, an area crowded with wooden houses and places of business. These factors meant that the death toll and destruction in Hiroshima was particularly high.

The firestorm in Hiroshima ultimately destroyed 13 square kilometres (5 square miles) of the city. Almost 63% of the buildings in Hiroshima were completely destroyed after the bombing and nearly 92% of the structures were damaged in some way.

Estimates of total deaths in Hiroshima have generally ranged between 100,000 and 180,000, out of a population of  350,000.

Testimonies of survivors paint a terrifying scene:

The appearance of people was . . . well, they all had skin blackened by burns. . . . They had no hair because their hair was burned, and at a glance you couldn't tell whether you were looking at them from in front or in back. . . . They held their arms bent [forward] like this . . . and their skin - not only on their hands, but on their faces and bodies too - hung down. . . . If there had been only one or two such people . . . perhaps I would not have had such a strong impression. But wherever I walked I met these people. . . . Many of them died along the road - I can still picture them in my mind -- like walking ghosts.



Due to the hilly geography of Nagasaki and the bombing focus being away from the city centre, the most serious damage from the bombing was limited to the Urakami Valley and part of downtown Nagasaki. The centre of Nagasaki, the harbour, and the historic district were shielded from the blast by the hills around the Urakami River.

The nuclear bombing did nevertheless prove devastating, with approximately 22.7% of Nagasaki's buildings being consumed by flames, but the death toll and destruction was less than in Hiroshima. Estimates of casualties from Nagasaki have generally ranged between 50,000 and 100,000.

The fact that the Nagasaki bomb was more powerful and also the narrowing effect of the surrounding hills did mean that physical destruction in the Urakami Valley was even greater than in Hiroshima. Virtually nothing was left standing.

The horror of the attacks was not limited to their immediate aftermath, however. Radiation and related diseases continued to kill for many years afterwards, with leukaemia and other cancers claiming many of those who had survived the initial blast over the next 50 years or more. A very high number of severe birth deformities and stillbirths were recorded over the 9 months following the attacks.



Hiroshima and Nagasaki today
The city of Hiroshima invites people from around the world to participate in making paper cranes to remember those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This action started in memory of Sadako who was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and later died of leukaemia caused by the exposure to nuclear radiation. Believing that folding paper cranes would help her recover, she kept folding them until she passed away on October 25th, 1955, after an eight-month struggle with the disease.

Sadako's death inspired a campaign to build a monument to pray for world peace. The Children's Peace Monument was built with funds donated from all over Japan. Now, approximately 10 million cranes are offered each year in front of the Children's Peace Monument.

Anyone may place paper cranes before the Children's Peace Monument in Peace Memorial Park. If you can't go to the park yourself you can send cranes to the following address:

Peace Promotion Division
The City of Hiroshima
1-5 Nakajima-cho Naka-ku
Hiroshima 730-0811 JAPAN

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