The Man Who Survived Two Nuclear Bombs

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

The man who survived two nuclear bombs! Is it even really possible? How can a normal human being survive two nuclear bombs? If someone survives two nukes, isn’t he the luckiest man? Surprisingly, it is a true fact. But was he lucky or not, is just a point of view.

‘The Man’ is Tsutomu Yamaguchi. He survived both Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.  He was born in 1996, 16th March. Mr. Tsutomu was an ordinary man. But his fate changed during world war II.

Although a total of 70 people are known to have affected by both Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing. Tsutomu Yamaguchi is the only man officially recognized by the Japanese Government as the survivor of both attacks.

At that time Mr. Tsutomu was only 29 years old. By profession he was a marine engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Although he was a resident of Nagasaki,  on August 6, 1945 he was in Hiroshima for business trip. It was the last day of his three months long trip. He was working on designing a new oil tanker in Hiroshima.

Around 8.15 AM, Tsutomu was walking towards Mitsubishi’s shipyard and he noticed something in the sky. It was an American B-29 bomber. All of a sudden a flash, brighter than anything he could ever imagine engulfed the city. The “Little Boy” was dropped. He just dived into a ditch to save his life. The shock wave from the explosion threw him into the air like a ball. He was only two miles from the ground zero.

Later in an interview with a British newspaper, he said,

“I think I fainted for a while. When I opened my eyes, everything was so dark, and I couldn’t see much. It was like the start of a film at the cinema, before the picture has begun when the blank frames are just flashing up without any sound.”

After the blast settled, he walked to their headquater. The headquater was destroyed. But he managed to find two of his coworkers who also survived the blast. Tsutomu and another two (Akira Iwanaga and Kuniyoshi Sato) spent that night in an air raid shelter. Next day (7th August, 1945) they went to the railway station, somehow it was working. He took the train to his home town, Nagasaki. He thought the destruction was over.

After reaching Nagasaki, he visited a hospital. There he received treatment for his burns. On 9th August, with his miserable health condition, he reported to work. Nagasaki office of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, demanded a full report on Hiroshima.  He tried to explain everything to his supervisor. He told his supervisor, one bomb had destroyed the whole Hiroshima. But the company supervisor called him crazy. Just as he said that, the American bomber Bockscar dropped the “Fat Man” over Nagasaki. But this time he was unharmed by the explosion.

In his later life he and his wife gave birth two daughters. They were healthy at the time of their birth, but encountered health issues in their late teenage life. His wife and son both died of cancer, may be due to the radiation from bombing. Mr. Tsutomu, the man who survived two nuclear bombs, lived for 93 years. He died of stomach cancer on 4th January, 2010.