Lucky Yamaguchi, The Man Who Survived Two Nuclear Bombs And Lived To The Age Of 93

You would be surprised but there are people who have survived a nuclear explosion. It is not a domain that is just held by the cockroaches.

When the USA dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a lot of people did survive. They are known as the hibakusha or the radiation-affected people.

Many of them survived even when they were within one kilometer of the explosion.

Many of them died of horrible injuries instantly. The survivors recalled what the carnage looked like.

 

And reading through their recollections, we can imagine what nuclear explosion actually does to a human body.

1. Radioactive rain melts your body – one drop at a time.

2. Fire spreads from your fingertips to the rest of your body.

3. Your skin slowly peels off.

4. You feel incredibly thirsty, but all the water has evaporated.

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Around 280,000 people survived the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

But there was one man who was unfortunate enough to be present at the same time as bombs dropped on both the cities. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was present at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of the bombings.

But lucky as he was, he survived both the bombings.

 

Lucky Yamaguchi, as he is known now, worked for the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and was on a business trip to Hiroshima on August 9, when the first bomb fell.

His upper body was severely burnt and he also suffered from temporary blindness. Despite the bombing, he spent the night in the city.

 

The next day he returned to his hometown of Nagasaki. Three days later the second bomb dropped on his hometown, and as luck would have it, he was there too when the second bomb exploded.

This time he was 3 kilometers away from the place the bomb was dropped, but was not hurt.

 

When asked what he thought when the second bomb exploded, he said –

“I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima,”

 

He was wrapped in bandages for years and suffered radiation sickness. He also went completely bald. His family and children suffered too.

His son died of cancer when he was just 59 and his wife died of liver and kidney cancer. He lived with his daughter who also was sick all her life.

 

But he did not crib, cry or complain about his suffering. He went back to his job as an engineer and spent the rest of his life not talking about what happened.

He was surprisingly healthy too, until he was diagnosed with a deadly form of stomach cancer.

 

That was when he started talking about the atrocities of nuclear weapons and the suffering of the people who are subjected to their wrath. He wants the world to dispose of their weapons.

“I can’t understand why the world cannot understand the agony of the nuclear bombs. How can they keep developing these weapons?”

 

There have been two nuclear weapons detonated in our history and Mr. Yamaguchi survived both of them. It is nothing short of a miracle.

And Mr. Yamaguchi acknowledges this miracle. he wants people to know about the ordeal his people went through after the explosions.

More than 140,000 people died in the twin blasts. Millions of people are still affected as diseases and disabilities have passed through generations because of radiation poisoning.

And in all the death, this man survived two such blasts and lived to a ripe age of 93.

His lady luck must have had a full-time job.

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Fact Sources – Daily Mail, Independent