Hiroshima and Nagasaki After the Bomb (In Pictures)

During World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit with atomic bombs. Days after its cities had been wiped out, Japan surrendered.
This is how Hiroshima and Nagasaki looked in 1945 after the atomic bombings.

Hiroshima

A city razed to the ground, only half a building remains standing.
Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, 1945. (Photo: MM/CCBYSA2.0)
A desolated landscape: burnt trees, everything razed. Only the mark of where roads where remain, and a few separate buildings standing in the background.
The signature on top of this picture belongs to the pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. (Photo: US Navy/Public domain)
(Photo: ENERGY.GOV/Public domain)
(Photo: Allan G. Cuthbert/Public domain)
US troops occupied Hiroshima and Nagasaki 45-60 days after the bombings. Many US soldiers developed burns and, years later, cancer. In the following decades, some of them sued the US government for exposing them to radiation. They were known as the ‘atomic veterans.’ (Photo: National Museum of the US Navy/Public domain)
(Photo: National Museum of the US Navy/Public domain)
(Photo: Wayne F. Miller/Public domain)
(Photo: National Museum of the US Navy/Public domain)
(Photo: US Military/Public domain)
(Photo: Donor M. Parkin/Public domain)
(Photo: Anefo/CC0)
School uniforms. The blast shredded the clothes of those farther away from the explosion. (Photo: Peat Bakke/CCBY2.0)
The shadow of a person impressed on the stairs. (Photo: Wikimedia/Public domain)

Nagasaki

Nagasaki was bombed 3 days after Hiroshima, on August 9, 1945. (Photo: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive/Public domain)
(Photo: ENERGY.GOV/Public domain)
A church. (Photo: Wikimedia/Public domain)
(Photo: National Museum of the US Navy/Public domain)
(Photo: National Museum of the U.S. Navy/Public domain)
The shadow of a person impressed on a wall. (Photo: Wikimedia/Public domain)
(Photo: National Museum of the US Navy/Public domain)
Nagasaki was an industrial city and one of Japan’s busiest ports. (Photo: National Museum of the US Navy/Public domain)
(Photo: National Museum of the US Navy/Public domain)
(Photo: US Navy/Public domain)

Warning: the following pictures show wounded survivors and dead people. They are not suited for minors or the faint of heart.

Hiroshima. (Photo: Wayne F. Miller/Public domain)
(Photo: Wayne F. Miller/Public domain)
Within minutes of the explosion, half of the population of Hiroshima was wounded or dead. (Photo: Yosuke Yamahata/Public domain)
Five years later, about 200,000 people had died (78% of the population of Hiroshima). Some died on impact, others from the wounds, and many more in the following years because of the radiation. (Photo: Hajime Miyatake/Public domain)
Hiroshima. (Photo: Shunkichi Kikuchi/Public domain)
Hiroshima. (Photo: Wikimedia/Public domain)
Nagasaki. (Photo: Yosuke Yamahata/Public domain)
Nagasaki. (Photo: Wikimedia/Public domain)
16-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi‘s wounds 5 months after the explosion in Nagasaki. Sumiteru became a renowned activist against nuclear weapons. (Photo: Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum/Public domain)
The US Department of Energy estimates 40,000 people died in Nagasaki after the blast. By January 1946, the death toll was c. 70,000. Five years later, it was 140,000. That is 72% of the population of the city. (Photo: Yousuke Yamahata/Public domain)
Nagasaki. After the bombs went off, fires broke out in both cities, which killed thousands more. (Photo: Yosuke Yamahata/Public domain)

More Articles

2020-08-03
Notify me of new comments
I want to get emailed
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments