77 years ago, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one knows how many people actually fell victim to the two atomic bomb attacks. To date there are only estimates.

In the morning of August 6, 1945,  everything went like planned for the US-american crew of Enola Gay. At 08:15 they release „Little Boy“ with about about 64 kilogramm of uranium-235  over the city of Hiroshima with a population of about 350,000 people at that time. About 70,000 people were killed instantly in the following atomic bomb blast. It is estimated that another 70,000 died as a result in Hiroshima by the end of 1945.

“The United States military estimated that around 70,000 people died at Hiroshima, though later independent estimates argued that the actual number was 140,000 dead. In both cases, the majority of the deaths occurred on the day of the bombing itself, with nearly all of them taking place by the end of 1945.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

August 9, just three days later exploded „Fat Man“ containing a core of about 5 kg of plutonium at 11:02 over Nagasaki with more than 200,000 inhabitants. This harbour city was known as the „Rome of Japan“, the  „capital“ of Japans catholic community. Aproximately 40,000 people were killed in the nuclear explosion. More than 30,000 died from after-effects in the following weeks and months. In 1949, a Nagasaki City committee estimated that 73,884 people had died. Unlike in Hiroshima, the atomic bomb did not explode over the city center, but north of it over the Catholic district of Urakami. Seventy per cent of the Catholic community are said to have died immediately in the bombing, 10,000 Japanese Catholics out of 15,000 lost their lives.

 Hiroshima Paper Peace Cranes

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