33 Photos Of The Hiroshima Aftermath That Reveal The Bombing’s True Devastation
Getty ImagesA lone man surveys the rubble.
The blasts of air-raid sirens were a familiar sound for the approximately 245,000 residents of Hiroshima that still remained in the city center in August 1945 as World War II neared its conclusion. At the time, American B-29 bombers regularly (dubbed “Mr. B” by the Japanese) soared over the nearby coast en route to Lake Biwa, a strategic rendezvous point about 220 miles northeast of the city.
On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, the siren sounded as it often did and some residents surely wondered if this was to be the day that “Mr. B” would unleash a load of explosives. Hiroshima was one of the few major Japanese cities that had been spared the wrath of United States airstrikes and there was a sense that something was coming.
Nevertheless, the alarm that morning probably only raised slight concern for many locals because the sirens had been sounding nearly every morning as U.S. weather planes floated in overhead. So Hiroshima residents went about their daily routines and the all-clear sounded soon after. Radar only picked up a small number of planes at high altitude, so no major threat was expected by the Japanese government.
But just after 8:15 a.m., a flash of blinding light erupted over the city. The U.S. had just dropped the atomic bomb.
Almost instantly, some 80,000 people (30 percent of Hiroshima’s population) were killed and at least 69 percent of the city’s buildings were destroyed. The bomb (known as “Little Boy”) detonated 1,900 feet above the city, flattening everything within a mile of ground zero and triggering fires across 4.4 square miles.
Beyond those who were killed or injured, the true scale of the Hiroshima aftermath revealed itself for generations to come as health issues like birth defects and cancer continued to plague those exposed to a blast unlike anything the world had ever seen before.
See the devastation of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima this stunning gallery.
