Hiroshima Survivor Shares Urgent Warning for the World

“The city had vanished”

For four agonising days, his father failed to return home from his job in central Hiroshima. With emotion in his voice, he recounts the desperate journey his mother took, bringing him and his younger brother along, in a search that would lead them through devastation.

But their progress was halted — the destruction was simply too vast.

“My father finally returned on the fourth day,” he recalls.
“He’d been in the basement of his workplace, changing into his uniform. That’s what saved him.
“When he emerged… Hiroshima was gone.”

“The suffering hasn’t ended”

Just three days after the Hiroshima bombing, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb — this time on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered unconditionally soon after, marking the end of World War II.

the close of 1945, the combined death toll from both bombings had reached an estimated 210,000. The full extent of long-term casualties from radiation exposure — including cancer and other illnesses — remains unknown.

“The suffering continues even now,” says Mr Mimaki.
“People are still battling the effects of radiation in hospitals.
“Cancer is common… I might even get it myself. That fear still lives with me.”