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From the Archive 

Hibakusha - Atomic Bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 

July 27, 2015 
by Chris Steele-Perkins 
(10 years ago Chris Steele-Perkins visited Hiroshima with writer Miyako Yamada to document the stories of Hibakusha - Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This is the first of a series of posts in which we'll share their recollections of the horrifying events that occurred 70 years ago.)

"August the 8th 1945. Hot at 8 in the morning. A clear, cloudless sky over Hiroshima. The air raid sirens had gone silent . People were busy at work. Sunao Tsuboi , a 20 year old student, after arranging to eat in the evening with his fellow students, left the dining hall to start work clearing houses for a firebreak. 12 year old Kawamoto Kanesaki and his teacher hurried along the path by the river, They were late for school and it was almost 8:15. They heard the sound of planes. Kawamoto looked up and saw a plane drop a white object on a parachute. He was fascinated as he witnessed the American B29 bomber Enola Gay releasing Little Boy. Seconds later Little Boy, the first atomic bomb used against human targets, the second ever to be detonated, went off 580 meters above Shima Hospital with a force of 15 thousand tons of TNT. A fireball with a temperature of several million degrees centigrade at detonation, registering at 7,000 degrees C after 0.3 seconds, sent thermal rays out that would burn human flesh at a distance of 3.5 kms. 15% of the energy was released as radiation, followed immediately by a blast of air from the superheated atmosphere that was still traveling at a speed of 28 meters a second even at over 3 kms. from the hypocentre, flattening nearly all before it..."

(<a href='http://magnum.ftpstream.com/18549/ca26b2e75c684e0923a21183f0a691df/Atomic%2bBomb%2bSurvivors%2bby%2bChris%2bSteele-Perkins.pdf' target='_blank'>Click here</a> to access the entire article.)