brdgt | 62nd Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another."

-J. Robert Oppenheimer, describing the initial reactions to the very first nuclear bomb, Trinity (the second one was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945), in an interview in 1965.

A victim of the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare is seen in September 1945, at the Ujina Branch of the First Army Hospital in Hiroshima. The explosion's thermic rays burned the pattern of this woman's kimono upon her back.

At the memorial service held at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial 5,221 more names were added to the list of dead, bringing the total number to 253,008. There are currently a total of 251,834 hibakusha (survivors).