P. A. Chacko SJ
Aug.06, 1945 – Hiroshima Bombing
World War II
Greed for political power and world supremacy
America detonated two nuclear weapons of mass destruction on Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug.06, 1945 and on Nagasaki on Aug. 09. To demonstrate the new weapon of mass destruction to the Soviet Union!
By the end of 1945, the bombing had killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima. The survivors were subjected to leukaemia, cancer or other side effects of radiation. 70 percent of victims had injuries including burns.
The bomb that was detonated over Hiroshima was a uranium bomb carrying 15,000 tonnes of TNT explosive. 70 per cent of buildings were reduced to rubble. Reportedly 90 per cent of doctors and nurses were killed or injured. 42 of 45 hospitals were destroyed or made non-functional.
Between 90,000 to 166,000 victims died within months of the Hiroshima bombing.
Koko Kondo, atomic survivor turned pace activist, was an eight month old child when she and her mother were almost buried under the rubble. Her mother pushed her out through an opening. Then her mother got out. The mother and child escaped inching through the rubble in darkness. Koko Kondo’s mother narrated to her the full story of the horror after forty years.
Koko became a peace activist. At 75 she is the youngest of the few bomb survivors. We join her in solidarity for the cause of world peace as we listen to her: “My concern is today nuclear weapons are much, much stronger. We have to abolish them now.”