At approximately 8.15am on 6 August 1945 a US B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima instantly killing over 40,000 people. Many more died in the days after from their wounds and exposure to the radioactive material and by December of that year over 140,000 people had died from the blast.
In the middle of the city near the epicentre of the bomb there is a beautiful Peace Memorial Park dedicated to the victims and to the goal of lasting peace. Surprisingly there is a building here where the bomb was dropped that was not destroyed since it's top was a dome and somehow it survived.
A view of the dome from the river as the park is built between two rivers...
Near the beginning of the Peace Park there is a museum dedicated to the event and its' exhibits are quite moving...
In the entrance is a clock and a day counter showing how many days have passed since the Bomb on the top and on the bottom how many days have passed since the last nuclear explosion. Scary enough there has been only 112 days since a nuclear test was done by North Korea and this is the number on the bottom.
When the bomb detonated approximately 600 meters above the city there was a blinding flash and the subsequent heat rays and blast burned and crushed nearly all the buildings within 2 kilometres. Here is a scale model of the destruction...
Here is a replica of the bomb that caused so much destruction. It had 50 kilograms of uranium but only 1 kilogram was activated and the instantaneous fission released the energy equivalent of 16,000 tons of high performance explosive. Imagine what would have happened if it had all activated?
Those who managed to survive were badly burned, their clothes in tatters as they tried to escape through the rubble...
Many of the displays in the Museum are of clothes and belongings from victims whose relatives sifted through the rubble to find their loved ones whose bodies for the most part were disintegrated...
Many of the victims were school children including this young girl...
This jacket belonged to the victim pictured at the top who was badly burned and died shortly after...
This helmut and bicycle belonged to a 3 year old boy who was playing outside and his body was disintegrated. The father buried them a,one with the ashes for 40 years in their garden before digging them up and loaning them to the Museum...
And And the stories went on and on....Another moving exhibit were the recorded stories of survivors of the blast as they told their stories about that day and what they saw and experienced. The common theme in their descriptions was that it was a scene from hell with one woman remembering all she saw were three colours...red, black and brown.
Survivors are also tour guides, this man is standing by one of the few photos taken shortly after the blast...
There were many Japanese school children visiting, taking notes and here signing the Book of Memories...
The park itself is quite lovely but as it was pouring rain we didn't have much time to linger and enjoy it. This is the view out from the Museum...
There are many memorial statues...
This is the Children's Memorial...
It is surrounded by displays of artwork sent from children all over the world...
The Peace Bell which you strike and say a prayer for peace...
Beautiful grounds...
The eternal flame...
This visit was a grim reminder of the effects of war both immediately and long lasting and we were glad to have the opportunity to visit.
The Peace Memorial is the main reason people visit Hiroshima but as we walked around it seemed to be another very well kept city. It is a very modern city as well since it had to be rebuilt after the war.
Many people ride bikes...
And cars park on top of each other...
We are staying in the center of the city and after a day realized that we are in the red light district but it is still very safe to walk around day and night...
Not far from the bar street either...
We find everything very expensive here as elsewhere in Japan so we buy our food at the supermarkets and food halls that are in every department store. This one was in a very fancy store so no shopping here.
Every store has a huge section of prepared food which seems to be in everyone's grocery cart including ours!
As an example of the cost of restaurant food here a set lunch menu which is very basic is around 2500-3000 yen which in our dollars is 30.00 and that's without a drink. So a typical lunch would cost us 70.00 if we went out to eat at a local restaurant. But the upside is I have eaten freshly prepared sushi almost every day!
It was easy to get around the city as well with many forms of transportation including the electric tram complete with conductors in full uniforms...
Hiroshima is a government Center with not much to see besides the Peace Memorial so the other day we went outside to visit a more rural area. Our stop here helped us understand what happened the day the first A Bomb was dropped and the need to ensure it will never happen again!
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