There were 300 doctors in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. After the bombing, only 50 were able to attend to the victims. The others were either dead or severely injured. Those who remained, and those who came to help, were virtually helpless in the face of such an overwhelming nightmare.
On August 9, 1945, the US dropped another nuclear weapon on Nagasaki. Eventually, some 200,000 people, the majority of whom were innocent citizens, died in the wake of these two nuclear attacks. And the tragedy is not over yet. Today, there are still more than 300,000 survivors who will suffer from devastating delayed radiation effects for the rest of their lives, including leukemia, genetic malformations, and other horrible after-effects of the most indiscriminate and poisonous of weapons.
For me, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima remains vivid more than 50 years later. But in recent years, it seemed that the memory of these terrible events was largely fading from public consciousness, as many believed their leaders assurances that the nuclear threat had largely ended.
On August 9, 1945, the US dropped another nuclear weapon on Nagasaki. Eventually, some 200,000 people, the majority of whom were innocent citizens, died in the wake of these two nuclear attacks. And the tragedy is not over yet. Today, there are still more than 300,000 survivors who will suffer from devastating delayed radiation effects for the rest of their lives, including leukemia, genetic malformations, and other horrible after-effects of the most indiscriminate and poisonous of weapons.
For me, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima remains vivid more than 50 years later. But in recent years, it seemed that the memory of these terrible events was largely fading from public consciousness, as many believed their leaders assurances that the nuclear threat had largely ended.