with the population of Hiroshima dying rapidly and horrific aliy in the weeks following the bomb the city was called a graveyard turned upside down on the morning of August 6 1945 the citizens of Hiroshima Japan were beginning an average Monday morning blissfully normal just after 8:00 a.m. some people saw a plane flying overhead one man said he knew it was an American plane as Japanese planes couldn't fly at that altitude but he thought it was just passing over as usual there was nothing usual about that plane 8:15 a b-29 warplane the Enola Gay dropped the world's first nuclear bomb on a human population the bomb was codenamed the little boy and was president harry s truman attempt to promptly end world war ii when you see the apocalyptic aftermath of the bomb it's hard to understand what truman was thinking in his mind the choice was between a costly prolonged invasion of japan where countless people would die or the atom bomb nine days after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima the Japanese surrendered effectively ending the war Charles miner a history professor at Harvard said that to the Americans the bomb quote seemed to offer a potentially magical solution that would spare a lot of pain on August 6th the bomb fell for 43 seconds before detonating at 19,000 feet when two masses of uranium-235 collided inside the bomb causing a nuclear chain reaction the resulting explosion was equivalent to approximately fifteen thousand tons of TNT and caused a mushroom cloud to rise 60,000 feet into the air on the ground there was a blinding flash of light then a deafening boom Juuko Morimoto who was thirteen years old at the time remembers it this way my cheek became slightly hot and then blam blam blam everything was shining there was a little pause and then what I would describe as a terrible roar more vibration than a sound and with that the house started to crumble on us I thought to myself this is the end I am going to die I am going to die at the epicenter of the detonation and for a mile all around it there was complete destruction buildings vegetation people gone we can't talk too much about these bodies because the heat was so intense over 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit or 4000 degrees Celsius that it incinerated people where they stood just bones and carbonized organs were left behind if a person near the epicenter wasn't killed by the heat or the blast I radiation killed them immediately the number of people who died is almost impossible to confirm between 60,000 80,000 people died in an instant that's 30 percent of the city's population the four and a half miles around the epicenter was devastated the parts of the city that weren't immediately destroyed burned for days radiation filled the atmosphere irradiated material was spread by wind water and rain residual radiation was everywhere those who weren't killed by the initial explosion died of burn related injuries of radiation sickness or were buried under collapsed buildings many had patterns of their clothes stripes polka dots flowers seared into their skin from the extreme heat of the bomb something like a hundred and forty thousand people would eventually die as a result of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima though many put that number much higher for generations survivors and the families of survivors continue to suffer from birth defects and cancer many Kiba Cuccia or bomb affected people hid that they were survivors so they could avoid any fear or revulsion that came from being marked as a carrier of the after-effects of the bomb but the one thing shared by all survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for that matter where a second bomb was dropped three days later killing 74,000 people is the memory of the dead and the dying death was everywhere following the bomb drop what to even do how to even handle the sheer amount of dead bodies the rivers were filled with the dead many having died desperately trying to get a drink of water and then dying immediately after that drink survivors were told not to give the injured people any water no matter how much they begged because just one sip to a shocked burned individual could actually speed up their death charred and broken bodies were everywhere in the streets under buildings on playgrounds survivors called the injured and a ghostly procession in the darkness that descended from the smoke and dust from the mushroom cloud injured people walked the streets in confusion arms outstretched flesh falling from their bones covered in blood survivor Tamiko Shoji told The New Yorker all over was smoke the entire city was covered with smoke I saw people coming across the bridge just completely black covered by blood coming towards us the whole city was a sea of fire and then at night it rained black rain that black rain was a mix of irradiated material and carbon residue from the burning city it rained down on Hiroshima black sticky staining everybody in everything the rain contaminated food and water and was ingested by survivors causing radiation poisoning even people who had not been affected by the blast developed difficulty eating and drinking they threw up dark liquid they developed petechiae or small circular patches on their skin indicative of bleeding happening under the skin finding these spots on oneself or others became an obsession a mark of impending death people's hair fell out in clumps wounds wouldn't stop believing even the tiniest prick of a needle flesh rotted around injuries or injection sites never healing people's bone marrow their gastrointestinal tracts their blood cells their very DNA had been destroyed or mutated by the radiation nobody not the Japanese not the Americans knew exactly what was happening to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nobody knew quite how to treat it this deadly atomic plague with the population of Hiroshima dying rapidly and horrific alee in the weeks following the bomb the city was called a graveyard turned upside down bodies were everywhere in the streets or rivers under buildings clinging to street cars in every state imaginable some were burned and bloody but intact other remains were just limbs or charred beyond recognition everywhere life had once been death now inhabited some people took to burning corpses in the streets others were cremated at crematories or at an altar that once stood in Hiroshima Peace Park so many were suddenly cremated when the bomb hit their ashes just had to be gathered up from the rubble the sick and dying were sent to a tiny island of Nina Shima just off the coast from Hiroshima where a temporary hospital was set up unaffected by the bomb the island served as a refuge for approximately 10,000 patients for 20 days unfortunately since thousands of those patients ultimately died they were hastily buried on the island in a mass burial mound 2,000 of those buried bodies were exhumed in 1955 and cremated and transferred to Hiroshima Peace Park in 1971 further excavation on me no shima uncovered 617 more buried victims those remains were also cremated and sent to the Peace Park of those 617 only seven people's remains were able to be identified from personal items they were buried with since then approximately 57 additional remains have been found on you know Shima but none of them have been positively identified almost all of the unclaimed cremated remains of Hiroshima victims are in the memorial mound at Hiroshima Peace Park a memorial to the events of August 6th on shelves inside the mound are over 800 white porcelain canisters containing the remains of the identified dead those 800 are what are left there were two thousand four hundred and thirty two sets of remains in 1955 but those canisters have been claimed by family members over the years but the vast number of cremated remains in the mound are unidentified and likely never will be they're stacked in Pine boxes behind a curtain the unidentified commingled remains of over 70,000 people who died because of the bomb each box says where the remains were recovered a school the cream but the identities of the people in the boxes are probably forever to be lost it is impossible not to be staggered by the horrific loss of life caused by the atomic bomb of August 6 1945 a bomb might I add that pales in comparison to the power of the nuclear bombs we have at our disposal today like I said in our video about the attack on Pearl Harbor in the face of such atrocities it's important to ask questions ask about the dead ask about how they died ask about why they died this is not just an exercise and facing mortality but it's forcing ourselves to face the circumstances in which other people face their mortality it can be unsettling but fully understanding the horrors that await us if we cross certain lines might be the only way we can stop the darkest parts of history from repeating themselves this video was made with generous donations from death enthusiasts just like you a sincere thank you to those on patreon who allow us to keep doing this work and improve our videos including this hopefully continuing series on the dead of World War 2