Health Injustices: Atomic Bomb in Hiroshima
In the summer of 1945, the United States dropped the atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Immediately after the dropping of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, its citizens started feeling the repercussions of their health from the radiation of the atomic bomb.
The Japanese state officially “nationalized” memories of the atomic bombing by providing medical care for A-bomb survivors (hibakusha), and they gave living testimonials of the event. [1] This also took a toll on the mental health of the Japanese people who suffered from the atomic bomb.
It was estimated that only about 35 percent of the total energy of the atomic bomb was in the form of thermal energy with 50 percent of it being blast energy and the remaining 15 percent was radiation energy. The thermal radiations from the atomic bomb mainly consisted of ultraviolet ray, visible rays, and infra-red radiations. This is why so many of the survivors of the bomb had heat burns.
People who were directly exposed and who were within 1.2 km from the hypocenter sustained fatal heat burns and about 60 percent of total deaths were believed to be directly due to thermal radiation and fire. Most deaths and injuries occurred near the blast because of the collapse of buildings and flying debris from the leveling of the buildings and how they were constructed in the city of Hiroshima.
According to the tentative 1965 dose estimation (commonly known as T65D estimation) the estimated dose at 1025 meters away from the hypocenter was around 400 rads in Hiroshima.[2] The radioactivity from the bomb lasted for several hours and even people who entered the city 100 hours after the initial blast were exposed to the horrible radioactive materials. Which is why this could be asked, why would anyone go into a zone where this had happened? This could be answered by that they simply had no idea of the type of bomb that was used, and you simply cannot see radioactive material.
There is a term that the Japanese used but it has no exact English equivalent and the term is “hibakusha”. The author Robert Jay Lifton says hibakusha means “those who have experienced, sustained, or undergone the atomic bomb.” [3]
The Japanese people of Hiroshima who survived the blast apart from the physical harm to their body, it started to take a toll on their social life in a big way. There was an disintegrations of the family life suffered and neighborhoods weren’t getting along with each other as well. People who depended on certain individuals to provide for the family were either killed or struggling to cope with the situation they had been dealt with. Even children who had lost their parents were sent to orphanages because they simply had nowhere to go. The city itself was an entire nightmare to most people living there if you had just survived the bomb. There also has been many statistics to show how powerful the blast was, but it doesn’t show how the people suffered or it doesn’t show the mental or physical harm that one had to endure when the atomic bomb destroyed their city and very life.
There was a poem written by a famous Japanese poet by the name of Sankichi Toge who had voiced feelings of the survivors of the atomic bomb. A monument was erected in the Peace Memorial Park of Hiroshima and the poem said, “Give me back my father, give me back my mother, give grandpa back, grandma back; give my sons and daughters back, give me back myself, give back the human race, as long as this life last, this life, give back peace that will never end.”. [4]
60 years after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the citizens were beginning to commemorate the event by building the Peace Memorial Park by holding the Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima. It would become the Mecca of Peace every year to commemorate the dead. It is amazing after all these years, after such an horrific thing to occur, that it could transform a city that laid in ruins to a commemoration of that city.
In conclusion, the atomic bomb of Hiroshima was a traumatic experience for those who survived it. Some even have horrible health problems days or years after it occured. Eventually the city rose from the ashes to commemorate the city of Hiroshima by building a park of peace.
Notes:
[1] Saito, Hiro. “Reiterated Commemoration: Hiroshima as National Trauma.”American Sociological Association 24, no. 4 (2006): 24.https://www.jstor.org/stable/25046730.
[2] Lifton, Robert Jay. “Psychological Effects of the Atomic Bomb inHiroshima: The Theme of Death.” Daedalus92, no. 3 (1963):36. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20026792.
[3] Pant, G.S. “Hiroshima: The Lingering Effects.” India International Centre 14, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 10.https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001419.
[4] Pant, G.S. “Hiroshima: The Lingering Effects.” India International Centre 14, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 10. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001419.
