In Search Of... Season 6 # 12, The Hiroshima Survivors

Written, produced and directed by Peter Matulavic

July, 16th 1945: The first atomic weapon in the world is tested in the Mexican desert. Hoping it would end World War II quickly and thereby saving millions of lives President Truman decides to use it against Japan. The atomic bomb was flown to Hiroshima in a plane called the B29. It was flying over the city every day and even the eye-witnesses seeing the plane had not been expecting anything bad. They had been wondering why the Americans had not attacked the city and wondered whether it might have been spared because of its beauty.

45 seconds the bomb took to reach the ground causing total destruction. Metal fused with stone, sand turned to glass. Human beings literally evaporated leaving nothing behind except for a shadow on concrete stone.

Conservative estimations say 70.000 were dead immediately and many thousands more to die during the following days. Acute Atomic radiation caused countless people to die slowly for days, months or years.

A deformed cell reproduces itself into another deformed cell: Cancer. Those effects only were experienced years after the impact of the bomb.

Permanent genetic damage was discovered with the babies born to exposed pregnant mothers. The psychological pain is still expressed today.