The concussion waves of the uranium explosion jolt the escaping plane, already nine miles away, like a gigantic slap from an invisible hand. As they look back, it’s impossible for the crew of “Enola Gay” to count the number of tiny fires breaking out far below in the miniature world of Hiroshima they’re leaving behind.
Directly under the bomb cloud, the Hiroshima Post Office, the Shima Hospital, the Museum of Science and Industry and the Gokoku Shrine have been decimated. The Aioi Bridge has been buckled and the blast, which reflected up off the river under it, has lifted up part of its thick concrete sidewalk. Its railings have been blown away. Meanwhile, the entire staff of the Hiroshima Post Office have died.
One middle-aged man who has survived the blast because he was near a concrete wall when the bomb detonated begins vomiting over and over, so dizzy he can hardly stand, swaying from side to side in the dusty chaos. Near the epicenter, only those behind barriers like thick concrete walls or big trees could’ve survived the blast.
It’s a tornado of radiation, a black umbrella that is something far more fearful than a volcanic eruption. No one below can see in front of their eyes. In the midst of the hazy disorder, dangerous debris from collapsed roofs and walls, glass fragments and shrapnel are flying.
As the pressure of the explosion falls back, the wind dies out and is sucked back into the vacuum left behind by the powerful outward rush of air. This produces a gigantic suction in the towering atomic cloud. The timbers of houses and other fragments of toppled buildings are pulled up into the churning mass, catching fire before tumbling back down. The sucking of air stirs up another gale force wind to fan the tornado of flames. The dark gray billowing cloud is extremely turbulent, tearing the city apart.
Fire has now heated the ground of Hiroshima to over 3,000 degrees Celsius. Bare skin is singed as far as three and a half kilometers away from Ground Zero directly below the bomb blast. The fireball roars and stings and burns and kills, like Lucifer attacking the city. People with burnt skin scream. Pain and blind fear are spreading.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WITHIN EIGHT HUNDRED feet from Ground Zero, few are still alive. That was the zone of instant death. The majority of the epicenter fatalities occurred instantly, many of them from flash burns caused by thermal radiation. The heat was intense enough to burn iron, glass, steel and concrete, let alone human flesh. Some atomic shadows are burnt onto concrete where they’d stood.
In this area, those who’ve survived had been shielded by strong barriers, such as reinforced concrete walls or heavy machinery, or had been hiding in dug-outs and air raid shelters.
The blast wind created by the explosion has killed many more, as has the hellfire that churned outwards from inside the atomic cloud.
Within a kilometer of the hypocenter, all living organisms, including fish in the river and some domestic animals, have received lethal doses of radiation. Lots of those who did survive are barely alive. They’re covered with flash burns, their faces like blackened footballs. A man who was getting on his bicycle to go to work when the uranium bomb went off had part of his cheek sliced off by a flying roof tile. His face has been scorched.
Survivors are still scattering, running in all directions as intense heat rays from the eerie death-cloud ignite houses and all inflammable material anywhere near Ground Zero. Confusion reigns, shock and grief are intermingled with terror. Broken glass has pierced many survivors, with glass shattering as far afield as twelve miles from the blast point. Falling masonry has maimed and killed, too. Some victims have passed out from the shock of seeing so many ghastly, surreal sights. Some people, trapped under fallen masonry or timber, are being burnt alive.
Will anyone ever be able to live in this city again? People fear there is some unknown poison everywhere. For the living in Hiroshima, there’s only kurushii – mortal agony. The light has gone from their eyes, the clothes on their bodies have turned into rags. The hair of some has turned white.
On the east bank of the river below the bridge, the bronze-domed Museum of Science and History, one of the city’s most admired and loved buildings, has been wrecked in one blow, its beautiful dome blasted and its strong walls cracked open. A fire has broken out in what little remains of its interior. A temple near the city center has been flattened.
Dozens of fireproof iron safes lie amongst the city’s rubble. Headstones in the cemetery are still standing.
A three-year-old boy was riding his favorite tricycle outside his home about a mile from the epicenter when the A-bomb exploded, burning the child and his bike.
One girl’s fingers have been melted together.
Someone has started collecting scrap metal from the heap that was once a city, one of the first scroungers.
A twenty-nine-year-old submarine designer from Nagasaki, Yamaguchi Tsutomu, was quitting Hiroshima after completing his three-month stint designing single-pilot submarines for the navy. He was walking alone in a potato field, on his way to the train station. He’d looked up when the B-29s had crossed the sky. He’d seen something drop. The immense flash had been followed by a roaring blast. It blew him backwards and knocked him out cold. Just before he blacked out, he saw images of his wife and newborn son playing in his head as in a film. When he came to, he found he was deaf in his left ear. The left side of his face and arms were burning with excruciating pain. A gigantic cloud of smoke, sweeping up the pulverized material of the bomb, was rising to a towering altitude.
The city has been turned into an inferno. The raging fire is being stoked by broken gas pipes, overturned stoves and boilers, electrical short-circuits and the paper screens and wood of traditional Japanese homes that become kindling.
Thirteen year-old Akira, waiting in the playground to play hide ‘n seek with his friends, saw the blast. Its heat singed his face, blinding him for a few seconds. Behind him, as he shielded his eyes, he could hear the roar of his school collapsing, along with cries and wails of pupils and teachers. He will survive but his sight has been ruined and, with it, his hopes of ever being a pilot. He doesn’t yet know that he will end the day as a orphan.
A child’s head pops out of a gap between collapsed beams and bricks, calling for help. But a teacher, who has survived, is too weak to push away her trap. It swallows the child alive. The teacher is speechless with sadness, overcome by weakness.
The Hiroshima Military Barracks has been demolished. The flag of Japan, the hinomaru, a red sun on a square of pure white, has been shredded.
A fearful cat with a singed coat meows alone in the ruins. Broken wires hang from charred telephone poles.
The cloud, shaped like a giant jelly-fish, has grown to ten miles in height and three miles across. Under it, seventy thousand people lie dead.
The firestorm, fanned by the blast wind, has ripped across the Hiroshima bowl. Even as far afield as eight miles away, light damage has occurred, with heavy damage for three miles in all directions. Around Ground Zero, it’s a wasteland. An instant man-made autumn effect, with stripped branches and some yellow foliage, has appeared on this unnatural Japanese landscape. Away on the surrounding hills, though, it’s still a bright, green, summery countryside.
When the blast wind has reached fifteen miles from Ground Zero, the explosive pressure finally dissipates and the hot whirlpool of radiation starts to wind down. The colors of the atom cloud fade into grey.
Hundreds of survivors, some naked, some in rags, flee towards the banks of the Ota River. Only water can save them. As crowds mill around the banks, some begin jumping into the water. Others are bathing in the shallow parts near the banks. They splash water over themselves. Flying embers, borne by high winds, are now setting fire to homes on the opposite side of the river. It isn’t long before there’s a wall of fire on either side of the river.