What terrible things happened in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 66 years back reminds the world of the horrendous consequences of the modern day nuclear wars; an invention of the human mind that could cause not only pain and sufferings to millions of people but could annihilate the entire human race in its extreme indulgence. While the ugly scenes and terrifying wounds of the World War II still haunts the people of Japan, an unimaginable destruction caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggering tsunami of 42.9 ft height hit the nation on 11th March 2011 killing thousands of people and destabilizing the nation’s crucial Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Around 7:00 in the morning of August 6 there was an air-raid warning and three B-29 aircraft were spotted in the vicinity of Hiroshima. Not many were disturbed as warplanes in small numbers had been a common sight. By 7:30 the “all clear” signal had been sounded and people were thinking of the day’s plans, looking forward to their daily activities. Children played and bathed in the river, farmers labored in the fields and fishermen on the water. City stores and factories got under way with their businesses (“That Day at Hiroshima”, Alexander H. Leighton). And suddenly at around 08:15 everybody stopped and stood in a crowd gazing up at three parachutes floating down through the clear blue sky, ignorant of the fact that for many of them it will be their last sight.
The gravity bomb known as "Little Boy", a gun-type fission weapon with 60 kilograms of uranium-235, took 43 seconds to fall from the aircraft named Enola Gay flying at 31,060 feet to the predetermined detonation height about 1,900 feet above the city. The people from miles around Hiroshima, in the fields, in the mountains, and on the bay, saw a light that was brilliant even in the sun, and felt the heat. Shortly after the bomb fell, there was a high wind, or “fire storm” engendered by the heat that tore up trees buildings and any other standing objects. After the flash, came the sound of the explosion, killing approximately 90,000–166,000 people.
The radius of the total destruction was about one mile; while the resulting fires destroyed an estimated 12 square kilometers of the city. Japanese officials determined that 69 percent of Hiroshima's buildings were destroyed and another 7 percent severely damaged. 70,000–80,000 people, or some 30 percent of the population of Hiroshima were killed immediately, and another 70,000 injured. Over 90 percent of the doctors and nurses in Hiroshima were killed or injured as most had been in the downtown area which received the greatest damage.
Three days later, on the morning of August 9, 1945, a US B-29 aircraft named Bockscar carried the nuclear bomb code-named "Fat Man", with Kokura as the primary target and Nagasaki as the secondary target. Providence saved the people of Kokura as misty weather prevented the aircraft a clear sight. After three runs over the city, and with fuel running low the aircraft headed for their secondary target, Nagasaki. At 11:01, the "Fat Man" weapon, containing a core of 6.4 kg of plutonium-239, was dropped over the city's industrial valley. It exploded 43 seconds later at 1,540 ft above the ground. The explosion generated heat estimated at 3,900 degrees Celsius and triggering winds that were estimated at 1005 km/hour killing approximately 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki.
In the months that followed, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In a US estimate of the total immediate and short term cause of death, 15–20% died from radiation sickness, 20–30% from flash burns, and 50–60% from other injuries. In both cities, most of the dead were innocent civilians.
Those who dared to venture into the cities soon after the bombings were greeted by sights of indescribable sorrow and madness. A businessman reported that “The bodies of half-dead people lay on the roadside, on the bridges, in the water, in the gardens, and everywhere. It was a sight no one wanted to see. Practically all of these people were nude. Their color was brownish blackish and some of their bodies were dripping.” Another man said, “The bodies of the dead were so burned that we could not distinguish men from women.”
The bombings of the two cities eventually brought the war to an end but not its memories; rather it drives a dreadful competition known as the nuclear race, the race to amass weapons for mass destruction. The pain and sufferings of the war victims; the fear, the anguish and anger of those who survived, the genocides and the crimes committed against humanity and the environment sends a clear message that there can be an alternative to wars and aggressions: for the experiences of war are not so pleasant even if one emerges victorious. But perhaps, the lessons were not enough.
Prior to the World War II, the United States was the only country having the technology to produce nuclear weapon, then popularly known as the atom bomb. The atomic bomb was the product of the war time Manhattan Project, which was first tested at Trinity Site, on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo in New Mexico. The idea that only a single nation in the world possesses such a strategic weapon was not acceptable to many other countries. This primarily led to another gruesome event in the world history known as the cold race, the division of the world into two blocks, US and the Soviet Union.
Following the footsteps of the United States, the Russian Federation test fired its first nuclear bomb in 1949 code named as ‘Joe-1’. Soon after the US tested an improvised fusion based hydrogen bomb in 1952 and in 1954, the Soviet Union tested its first megaton-range hydrogen bomb in 1955. And throughout the cold war both the countries continued to modernize and enlarge its nuclear arsenal.
Later, UK (1952), France (1960) and China (1964) joined the elite nuclear club also known as the permanent- five. Aside from these P-5 countries, other countries like India (1974), and Pakistan (1998) had also tested nuclear weapons amidst harsh criticisms and sanctions. Israel, North Korea and even Iran are believed to possess such weapons of mass destructions. And since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing purposes and demonstrations. Estimates shows that, from a high of 65,000 active weapons in 1985, there are now nearly 8,000 active nuclear warheads and more than 22,000 total nuclear warheads in the world as of 2010 (Wikipedia 2011).
Though some nuclear experts observed that the nuclear deterrence has prevented major wars among powerful countries for over six decades, critics still fears that a nuclear war between any two nuclear powers would result in mutual annihilation. A modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 1,100 kg can produce an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons of TNT. Thus, the detonation of a single modern day average strategic nuclear weapon will ignite a gigantic firestorm over a total area of 105 to 170 square kilometers (Eden 2004). Obviously, the world has enough stockpiles of nuclear warheads to raze the entire planet.
In 2007, US scientists (Robock et al) predicted that a nuclear war fought with about one-third of the global nuclear arsenal would cause 50 million tons of smoke to reach the stratosphere –about ten times that of a regional war. The resulting ‘nuclear darkness’ would cause average global surface temperatures to become as cold as those experienced 18,000 years ago during the coldest period of the last ice age.
Computer models predict that 40% of the smoke would still remain in the stratosphere 10 years after the nuclear war, causing a long-term nuclear darkness. The subsequent coolin g of the Earth’s surface would weaken the global hydrological cycle and will lead to significant decreases in average global precipitation. Studies shows that growing seasons would be drastically shortened throughout the world, particularly in the large agricultural regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Under such circumstances, most people on the Earth would starve.
In addition to the catastrophic effects on the climate and ozone layer, a nuclear war would release enormous amounts of radioactive fallout, pyrotoxins and toxic industrial chemicals into the environment. Taken together, these would be a clear threat to the continued survival of humans and other complex forms of life. Radioactive materials released from the testing or detonation of nuclear weapons remain in the ecosystem for thousands of years; drinking radioactive contaminated water over a long period of time is closely linked to high cancer rates. Nuclear radiation, which results from the neutrons and gamma rays associated with fission, is lethal in high doses, and has many lingering effects, including increased cancer rates and organ damage.
The world has seen enough of miseries inflicted upon the human race by either accidental or intentional use of nuclear and other toxic chemicals. To name a few, the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, The Chernobyl, Russian (now Ukraine) nuclear power plant explosion of 1986, the Third Mile Island near Nuclear Disaster of 1979, and the recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant explosion etc. Both the Chernobyl and the Fukushima incident were rated as level 7 or the highest on international nuclear scale, causing not only substantial loss on human lives and property but necessitating evacuation and re-settlement for hundreds of thousands of people within 30 km radius for Chernobyl and 20 km for Fukushima.
If disruptions on a civilian nuclear power plants could cause such a catastrophe, what could happen to the world when we are sitting on a thousands of active nuclear war head pointing at each other cities? When memories are short-lived, the future remains bleak. Verily, nuclear bombs are not human’s best inventions.
Around 7:00 in the morning of August 6 there was an air-raid warning and three B-29 aircraft were spotted in the vicinity of Hiroshima. Not many were disturbed as warplanes in small numbers had been a common sight. By 7:30 the “all clear” signal had been sounded and people were thinking of the day’s plans, looking forward to their daily activities. Children played and bathed in the river, farmers labored in the fields and fishermen on the water. City stores and factories got under way with their businesses (“That Day at Hiroshima”, Alexander H. Leighton). And suddenly at around 08:15 everybody stopped and stood in a crowd gazing up at three parachutes floating down through the clear blue sky, ignorant of the fact that for many of them it will be their last sight.
The gravity bomb known as "Little Boy", a gun-type fission weapon with 60 kilograms of uranium-235, took 43 seconds to fall from the aircraft named Enola Gay flying at 31,060 feet to the predetermined detonation height about 1,900 feet above the city. The people from miles around Hiroshima, in the fields, in the mountains, and on the bay, saw a light that was brilliant even in the sun, and felt the heat. Shortly after the bomb fell, there was a high wind, or “fire storm” engendered by the heat that tore up trees buildings and any other standing objects. After the flash, came the sound of the explosion, killing approximately 90,000–166,000 people.
The radius of the total destruction was about one mile; while the resulting fires destroyed an estimated 12 square kilometers of the city. Japanese officials determined that 69 percent of Hiroshima's buildings were destroyed and another 7 percent severely damaged. 70,000–80,000 people, or some 30 percent of the population of Hiroshima were killed immediately, and another 70,000 injured. Over 90 percent of the doctors and nurses in Hiroshima were killed or injured as most had been in the downtown area which received the greatest damage.
Three days later, on the morning of August 9, 1945, a US B-29 aircraft named Bockscar carried the nuclear bomb code-named "Fat Man", with Kokura as the primary target and Nagasaki as the secondary target. Providence saved the people of Kokura as misty weather prevented the aircraft a clear sight. After three runs over the city, and with fuel running low the aircraft headed for their secondary target, Nagasaki. At 11:01, the "Fat Man" weapon, containing a core of 6.4 kg of plutonium-239, was dropped over the city's industrial valley. It exploded 43 seconds later at 1,540 ft above the ground. The explosion generated heat estimated at 3,900 degrees Celsius and triggering winds that were estimated at 1005 km/hour killing approximately 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki.
In the months that followed, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In a US estimate of the total immediate and short term cause of death, 15–20% died from radiation sickness, 20–30% from flash burns, and 50–60% from other injuries. In both cities, most of the dead were innocent civilians.
Those who dared to venture into the cities soon after the bombings were greeted by sights of indescribable sorrow and madness. A businessman reported that “The bodies of half-dead people lay on the roadside, on the bridges, in the water, in the gardens, and everywhere. It was a sight no one wanted to see. Practically all of these people were nude. Their color was brownish blackish and some of their bodies were dripping.” Another man said, “The bodies of the dead were so burned that we could not distinguish men from women.”
The bombings of the two cities eventually brought the war to an end but not its memories; rather it drives a dreadful competition known as the nuclear race, the race to amass weapons for mass destruction. The pain and sufferings of the war victims; the fear, the anguish and anger of those who survived, the genocides and the crimes committed against humanity and the environment sends a clear message that there can be an alternative to wars and aggressions: for the experiences of war are not so pleasant even if one emerges victorious. But perhaps, the lessons were not enough.
Prior to the World War II, the United States was the only country having the technology to produce nuclear weapon, then popularly known as the atom bomb. The atomic bomb was the product of the war time Manhattan Project, which was first tested at Trinity Site, on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo in New Mexico. The idea that only a single nation in the world possesses such a strategic weapon was not acceptable to many other countries. This primarily led to another gruesome event in the world history known as the cold race, the division of the world into two blocks, US and the Soviet Union.
Following the footsteps of the United States, the Russian Federation test fired its first nuclear bomb in 1949 code named as ‘Joe-1’. Soon after the US tested an improvised fusion based hydrogen bomb in 1952 and in 1954, the Soviet Union tested its first megaton-range hydrogen bomb in 1955. And throughout the cold war both the countries continued to modernize and enlarge its nuclear arsenal.
Later, UK (1952), France (1960) and China (1964) joined the elite nuclear club also known as the permanent- five. Aside from these P-5 countries, other countries like India (1974), and Pakistan (1998) had also tested nuclear weapons amidst harsh criticisms and sanctions. Israel, North Korea and even Iran are believed to possess such weapons of mass destructions. And since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing purposes and demonstrations. Estimates shows that, from a high of 65,000 active weapons in 1985, there are now nearly 8,000 active nuclear warheads and more than 22,000 total nuclear warheads in the world as of 2010 (Wikipedia 2011).
Though some nuclear experts observed that the nuclear deterrence has prevented major wars among powerful countries for over six decades, critics still fears that a nuclear war between any two nuclear powers would result in mutual annihilation. A modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 1,100 kg can produce an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons of TNT. Thus, the detonation of a single modern day average strategic nuclear weapon will ignite a gigantic firestorm over a total area of 105 to 170 square kilometers (Eden 2004). Obviously, the world has enough stockpiles of nuclear warheads to raze the entire planet.
In 2007, US scientists (Robock et al) predicted that a nuclear war fought with about one-third of the global nuclear arsenal would cause 50 million tons of smoke to reach the stratosphere –about ten times that of a regional war. The resulting ‘nuclear darkness’ would cause average global surface temperatures to become as cold as those experienced 18,000 years ago during the coldest period of the last ice age.
Computer models predict that 40% of the smoke would still remain in the stratosphere 10 years after the nuclear war, causing a long-term nuclear darkness. The subsequent coolin g of the Earth’s surface would weaken the global hydrological cycle and will lead to significant decreases in average global precipitation. Studies shows that growing seasons would be drastically shortened throughout the world, particularly in the large agricultural regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Under such circumstances, most people on the Earth would starve.
In addition to the catastrophic effects on the climate and ozone layer, a nuclear war would release enormous amounts of radioactive fallout, pyrotoxins and toxic industrial chemicals into the environment. Taken together, these would be a clear threat to the continued survival of humans and other complex forms of life. Radioactive materials released from the testing or detonation of nuclear weapons remain in the ecosystem for thousands of years; drinking radioactive contaminated water over a long period of time is closely linked to high cancer rates. Nuclear radiation, which results from the neutrons and gamma rays associated with fission, is lethal in high doses, and has many lingering effects, including increased cancer rates and organ damage.
The world has seen enough of miseries inflicted upon the human race by either accidental or intentional use of nuclear and other toxic chemicals. To name a few, the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, The Chernobyl, Russian (now Ukraine) nuclear power plant explosion of 1986, the Third Mile Island near Nuclear Disaster of 1979, and the recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant explosion etc. Both the Chernobyl and the Fukushima incident were rated as level 7 or the highest on international nuclear scale, causing not only substantial loss on human lives and property but necessitating evacuation and re-settlement for hundreds of thousands of people within 30 km radius for Chernobyl and 20 km for Fukushima.
If disruptions on a civilian nuclear power plants could cause such a catastrophe, what could happen to the world when we are sitting on a thousands of active nuclear war head pointing at each other cities? When memories are short-lived, the future remains bleak. Verily, nuclear bombs are not human’s best inventions.
(The writer is from the Green Foundation, Wokha, Nagaland and can be reached at the Email: janbemolotha@gmail.com)
Note : Every year August 6 is observed as Hiroshima Day to extent solidarity to the victims of the atom bombs and also to advocate a nuclear bomb free world.
