nuclear-news

Death of famed Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivor

Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivor dies aged 93 | World news | The Guardian Justin McCurry 6 January 2010 Tsutomu Yamaguchi witnessed at close hand the nuclear devastation of two Japanese cities, and lived to tell the tale. Now it will be left to others to tell his incredible story after his death this week at 93.Yamaguchi, the only person officially recognised as a survivor of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, died on Monday of stomach cancer at a hospital in Nagasaki, his family said today.The mayor of Nagasaki said “a precious storyteller has been lost”.Yamaguchi, then an engineer for the shipbuilder Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was in Hiroshima on a business trip on 6 August 1945 when an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on the city, killing 80,000 people instantly and another 60,000 in the months that followed. The badly burned Yamaguchi, who was less than two miles from the blast, spent the night in an air raid shelter before returning home to Nagasaki, 180 miles away, two days later.He was in Nagasaki on 9 August when a nuclear bomb devastated the city, killing an estimated 70,000 people. Japan surrendered less than a week later………………….

He did not speak publicly about his past until the death in 2005 of his second son – who was six months old at the time of the Nagasaki bombing – from cancer, aged 59…………..
In recent years he talked openly about life as a double A-bomb survivor and became a vocal supporter of nuclear disarmament. He wrote books and songs about his experiences, and in 2006 made a speech at the UN in New York to mark the release of Niju Hibaku (Double Irradiation), a documentary about him and other people who had lived through both nuclear attacks…………..
In later years he battled acute leukaemia, cataracts and other radiation-related ailments.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivor dies aged 93 | World news | The Guardian

January 7, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, weapons and war | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive