Tokyo: Tsutomu Yamaguchi died Monday morning as the result of stomach cancer. He was the the only person to have survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. He was 93.
On August 6, 1945 Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip for his shipbuilding company. He was an engineer with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Mr. Yamaguchi was just stepping off a tram when Little Boy, the first American atom bomb, was dropped 3 kilometers away bringing about serious burns to his upper body. He spent the night in Hiroshima albeit fitfully, in a bomb shelter with his eardrums destroyed and temporarily blinded.
Yamaguchi's hometown was Nagasaki, where he returned the next day, only to again be 3 kilometers away when Fat Man was dropped on August 9, 1945, reports Associated Press.
It's a horrifying story but Wednesday the mayor of Nagasaki said, "a precious storyteller has been lost." [07/01/10]
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Seatrade, a trading name of Informa Markets (UK) Limited. Add Seatrade Maritime News to your Google News feed.
