Sakue Shimohira
Sakue was just 10 at the time of the blast. Her tale of horror starts at the moment her and her sister heard the air raid siren. They dived into the shelter for cover as normal. A few moments later a voice was heard outside saying “air-raid warning lifted”, many left the safety of the shelter but Sakue and her sibling stayed put. That was a lucky decision, almost immediately the massive boom created by ‘big boy’ shook their world. They saw a flash through the small opening of the shelter and the force of the pressure wave threw Sakue backwards knocking her unconscious on the back wall.
When Sakue came round she was shocked by the scenes of the dead and dying all around her within the once quiet shelter. There were people with charred bodies, skin hanging off in ribbons, people whose eyes had literally exploded in their sockets from the pressure wave. Some people’s bodies were swollen up to three times their normal size. The girls were understandably terrified.
They heard a friend screaming from outside for someone to kill him, they peeked through the exit to see him lying on the floor with his intestines beside him, writhing in agony. The shelter reeked of burned flesh and death, as they waited for help the nausea overcame them.
Eventually their step father came to find them and take them from their horror. All that waited for them back at home was their dead sister, mother and neighbour, masses of bodies and the wailing of the dying. Two days later her brother also succumbed to his wounds. The remaining family went off to hide in the countryside with others. They lived a life of abject poverty with little to eat and radiation poisoning, a new disease that no one knew how to deal with. Eventually, the suffering and loss got too much for Sakue’s little sister and she killed herself under a train.
It’s difficult to know how to conclude an article like this. What can I add? Sitting in my comfortable chair in a powerful nation with luxury at my beck and call. I guess the important thing is to make sure that nuclear weapons are never taken lightly. Atom bombs are not just a powerful kind of bomb. It’s a kind of bomb that kills and keeps killing for decades.
Peace.
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