Eighty years after the atomic bomb was first and only used in warfare on August 6 and August 9, 1945, survivors of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki share their firsthand accounts in Atomic People, which will air on PBS on August 4.
The United States had been developing the atomic bomb since Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. When the U.S. dropped the bombs four years later, they instantly killed approximately 78,000 of Hiroshima’s 350,000 residents and about 40,000 of Nagasaki’s 240,000 residents. Roughly a week after the bombings, on August 15, Japan announced its surrender, officially signing the documents on September 2 and bringing World War II to an end.
Most of the survivors were children when the atomic bombs were dropped, yet they vividly recall those momentous days.
Dripping flesh
Survivors recall initially seeing bright lights. In Atomic People, Kikuyo Nakamura, who was 21 at the time, described the mountains appearing to be ablaze. Students in Hiroshima recount an intense, blinding light racing towards them in their classroom.
The immediate effects of the bomb were evident, survivors state in the documentary. One man describes his home’s roof tiles shattering and a hole appearing in the ceiling. Hiromu said the sky looked as though it was “raining fire.”
Michiko Kodama, then a schoolgirl, remembers hiding under a desk as the ceiling collapsed. Windows shattered, scattering splinters across classroom desks and chairs.
Hiromu recounts seeing someone with “skin hanging off his face like an old cloth,” and “flesh dripping like candle wax.” Kodama’s father retrieved the 7-year-old from school, and while he carried her on his back, she witnessed people with melting flesh—a sight she describes as “a scene from hell.” Chieko Kiriake, who was 15, saw victims whose leg skin was peeling off.
As victims began to die, students were tasked with digging graves for them in their playgrounds. “I cremated them,” Kiriake states. Underneath Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park lie the remains of tens of thousands of victims.
The aftermath
Survivors who lost their homes were forced to construct barrack huts. Food was scarce. They describe venturing into the mountains to search for trees bearing edible fruits. They even consumed bee eggs from nests. As Seiichiro Mise remarks, “We really lived like cavemen.”
One survivor shared that her father died after his stomach turned black and blue, and he vomited blood. By the end of 1945, approximately 90,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had perished.
Kiyomi Iguro, aged 19 in 1945, sustained no immediate injuries from the bombing, but believes her later miscarriage was caused by radiation exposure from the bomb. “I thought about taking my life,” she confides in the documentary, tempted to overdose on sleeping pills. A couple, Hiroshi and Keiko Shimizu, explain their fear of having children due to potential genetic abnormalities they might pass on. Kikuyo Nakamura stated that her son developed leukemia as an adult, and the doctor informed her it was likely due to her breastfeeding him.
Survivors received some medical care and a form of compensation, but ongoing campaigns advocate for greater compensation and the global abolition of nuclear weapons. The documentary concludes with survivor Sueichi Kido at the United Nations in 2023, expressing his fear that current conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza could lead to another nuclear war. Survivors hope that testimonies like those presented in Atomic People, detailing the bomb’s devastating effects, will prevent a recurrence of history.
Atomic People premieres on August 4 at 10 p.m. ET.
