The consequences of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a combination of immediate death from the explosion and tortuous death from radiation sickness in the following days, weeks, and months. The victims went through several stages of suffering, and the testimonies of the survivors and those who rushed to help paint a picture that they themselves call hell.

Instant death and the first hours

In the epicenter of the explosion, people evaporated — only dark silhouettes remained on the walls or shadows on the stones. The temperature at the point of explosion reached millions of degrees. Those who were within a few hundred meters of the epicenter but not in it received lethal burns — the skin burned or peeled off in strips. Many died in the first minutes and hours from mechanical injuries — they were crushed by debris from buildings that collapsed from the blast wave.

Acute radiation sickness: the first days and weeks

Those who survived the explosion but received a high dose of radiation began to suffer from acute radiation sickness. Symptoms appeared in a certain sequence.

Testimonies of the victims: hell, probably similar to what we went through

Sachiko Matsumoto, who was 11 years old when the bomb fell on Nagasaki, remembered: “Suddenly we saw a bright yellow-white light. I was lifted by the blast wave and thrown with force. When I stood up, I realized that I was standing on bare ground – there was not a single blade of grass.” Her older sister, who lived 700 meters away, was searched for and only “white ash” was found. Her father, who was 800 meters from the epicenter, was injured but alive: “His hair fell out in a few seconds. The temperature rose, diarrhea began. The whole body turned into blotches. These were symptoms of death.”

Teruko Ueno, a 15-year-old student nurse, helped extinguish a fire in the dormitory where many of her classmates died. She remembers “only working day and night”: “We had to treat the injured with terrible injuries. There was no drinking water, and food was not delivered at all.” Later, assisting with skin grafts, she saw how “skin was taken from the patient's thighs and transplanted onto areas of the body where keloid scars had formed from burns.” “I have never been to hell and do not know what it is like there, but hell, probably, looks like what we went through,” she says.

Mimaki Toshikatsu, who was 3 years old in Hiroshima, saw “hundreds of people who could barely walk or even crawl. Their hair and clothes were burned, they moaned and asked us for water.” He also remembers how the Japanese authorities “tried in every way to downplay the true scale of the tragedy.”

Testimonies of those who came to help

Witnesses described how people who entered the city a few days after the explosion (they are called “nyu:shi hibakusha”) also began to suffer from radiation. One survivor remembered how “people lost their hair due to radiation.” Another — how her “elder sister was severely burned, but since her uncle was on the navy, they were able to get drugs for treating burns.”

Sachiko Matsumoto, coming to her senses, “hastened to help others”: “Children were crying ‘help, mother, help!’. My mother and younger brother were injured. Children of our relatives received burns.” She also remembers: “Those who were in shelters died slowly – they had no chance to receive medical help. They just sat there and waited for death.”

Sutomu Yamaguchi, the only person officially recognized as a victim of both bombings, walked to the train station after the explosion in Hiroshima (he was 3 km from the epicenter) “and bought a ticket to my hometown… Nagasaki”. He went not to a hospital but “to report to the leadership” — and saw the second flash during the report. He survived again.

How the territory was decontaminated

Immediately after Japan's surrender, American forces understood that occupying forces could be exposed to residual radiation. The Manhattan Engineering District organized a special scientific group under the leadership of Colonel Stafford Warren. This group arrived in Nagasaki September 20 – October 6, and in Hiroshima October 3–7, 1945, to conduct a radiological survey.

The group reported that radiation levels in both cities were very low and would not pose a danger to occupying forces. However, this conclusion was made after a typhoon and heavy rains, which some scientists believe could wash away radioactive fallout.

At the same time, official U.S. authorities long denied the effects of residual radiation. Brigadier General F. Thomas Farrell claimed that the bombs “were exploded at such a height that there was no radiation left”, and “the main effect of the weapon was the blast wave.” Only in 1950 did scientists from the ABCC (Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission) notice the effects of residual radiation and began “Survey of Residual Radiation”, but, according to Dr. Lowell Woodbury, due to “pressure from other work and a shortage of researchers,” this project was never implemented.

Thus, the territory was not decontaminated in the usual sense — it was simply declared safe after the rains, and the official U.S. position on the absence of harm from residual radiation persisted for decades, despite evidence to the contrary.

Conclusion

The suffering of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not only an instantaneous flash but also a long, torturous agony from invisible radiation that attacked from within, caused hair loss, caused bleeding, and killed slowly, over weeks and months.

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