Tsumoto Yamaguchi is the only officially recognized victim who survived the explosion of two nuclear bombs launched by the United States.
There are all sorts of fictional stories and feature films of indestructible men, but no superhero film can compare to what happened in Tsutomu Yamaguchi.
The man was born on March 16, 1916 in Nagasaki. He started working Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in the mid -1930s, he worked as a draftsman designing tankers. He became an only father and was 29 years old, leading a prosperous life as a young engineer.
During World War II, he continued his work at the company. Although he lived and worked in Nagasaki, in the summer of 1945 he was in Hiroshima for a three-month business trip.
Tsumoto Yamaguchi a naval engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Hell in the first person.
On August 6, 1945, Yamaguchi walked the streets of Hiroshima and went to the shipyards, he remembered one day clear and full day. Boy, the 4-ton charge exploded at a height of 600 meters. The disaster opened. The engineer lost consciousness due to burns all over his body. More than 100,000 people died instantly.
“I saw a large mushroom -shaped pillar rising into the sky. It was like a tornado, although it didn’t move, but it grew and spread horizontally at its highest point ”, Tsumoto recounted the drama a few years later in the first person.
The nuclear blast exploded in his eardrum, temporarily blinding him, as well as leaving a severe radiation burn on the left side of his upper body. After making a partial recovery, he crawled to a shelter and returned to Nagasaki in the following days.
This is what Hiroshima looked like after the attack on August 9, 1945. Photo: AP Photo/File
side effects
Three days later, on August 9, 1945, he was located in his hometown of Nagasaki. The man decided to work despite the continuing physical consequences of what happened in Hiroshima. Yamaguchi described the explosion to his supervisor, when the American 21-kiloton Fat Man plutonium bombardment exploded in the city.
The company where the engineer worked was located 3 km away from the impact zone, but this time, he came out of the explosion unscathed.
Both Yamaguchi and the other witnesses of the second and final nuclear attack in history were horrified to watch the same hell erupt just three days ago. It is estimated that in Nagasaki at least 120,000 people died.
The city of Nagazaki collapsed after the explosion of a nuclear bomb. Photo: AP Photo/Stanley Troutman, Pool, File
A normal man
jDespite exposure to the two nuclear attacks that Japan suffered, he was a man who lived without consequences. He continued with his wife, also a Nagasaki survivor, and had two more daughters. The little boy who also passed the Fat Boy litmus test at a young age lived to be 58 years old.
Yamaguchi did not have to face the hardships of other Japanese: his skin remained intact, he had a long life, he continued to work for Mitsubishi after a few years, he retired, and in the latter part of his existence he had problems associated with radiation.
“Now I can tell young people my horrible story and the whole world will know what I experienced even after I died”Tsumoto Yamaguchi declared in 2008 on a Japanese television network.
Yamaguchi in his last years of life. Photo: JOHANNES EISELE / AFP
Deserved awards.
hibakusha
Finally, his request was accepted and made public on March 24 of the same year. In a report recorded by the news channel ABC Australia, shortly before he died, we saw him immersed in an emotional ceremony for him and his family.
Tsumoto Yamaguchi with his family shortly before the awards ceremony in 2009
“The fact that I have twice survived radiation from atomic bombs is an official matter now with the Japanese government,” the engineer said to a sea of applause.
This is how he became the only person officially recognized as a survivor of the same bombing, although it is estimated there were more than 160 more people.
Tsumoto Yamaguchi died on January 4, 2010 at the age of 93 due to stomach cancer.
Source: Clarin
