80 years on, No More Hiroshimas, No More Nagasakis

 In 1945, the United States dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with tragic and devastating consequences. Hundreds of thousands of people died, many instantaneously, others soon after from burns and shock, and yet more from the impact of radiation in the months and years that followed. By 1950, an estimated 340,000 people had died as a result of the two bombs.

The heart of the explosion in Hiroshima reached a temperature of several million degrees centigrade, resulting in a heat flash over a wide area, vaporising all human tissue. Within a radius of half a mile of the centre of the blast, every person was killed. All that was left of people caught out in the open were their shadows burnt into stone. Beyond this central area, people were killed by the heat and blast waves, either out in the open or inside buildings collapsing and bursting into flame. In this area the immediate death rate was over 90 per cent.

The firestorm created hurricane-force winds, spreading and intensifying the fire. Almost 63% of the buildings of Hiroshima were completely destroyed and nearly 92% of the structures in the city were either destroyed or damaged by the blast and fire.

Many survivors – known in Japanese as hibakusha – still suffer to this day from the impact of radiation. Pregnant women who survived the bomb faced additional horrors, for the bomb had a terrible impact on a foetus. Many were stillborn, but those born alive faced higher infant mortality rates than normal, or had abnormally small skulls, often suffering from mental disabilities. From about 1960, a higher rate of cancer became evident, in particular of the thyroid, breast, lung and salivary gland.

Today 13,000 nuclear weapons still threaten our survival, even though the majority of people in the world and their governments support an international ban on their development and use. Nuclear rhetoric around the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East has showed us how these weapons can make a dangerous situation even riskier. The possibility of nuclear war is the greatest for many decades.