"Let all the souls here rest in peace as we will never repeat this mistake."


--Apology etched into the granite cenotaph in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park









PERSONAL NOTE: I ask you... What need have the Japanese people to apologize for Hiroshima? Or Nagasaki? Why is it Americans today rarely demonstrate this level of humility?

This [event] should teach us the grave import of the truth, born of tragedy and suffering, that "the only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished."


Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayor
The City of Hiroshima
August 6, 2008

"...more than 300 thousand souls of A-bomb victims..."

We still do not have an accurate count of human casualties inflicted by the atomic bomb, but it is estimated that approximately 350,000 soldiers and civilians were in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. After the bombing, radioactive substances fell to earth and remained on the ground for some time. Thousands of people who came into Hiroshima to help with relief activities or look for family members were exposed to this residual radiation. Like those who were directly exposed, many fell ill and some even died. By the time the acute effects were dying down at the end of December 1945, approximately 140,000 people (±10,000) are estimated to have died as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima.

The phrase "more than 300 thousand souls of A-bomb victims" refers to all survivors of the Hiroshima bombing known to have died thus far. To clarify the human damage done by the A-bombing of Hiroshima, a Survey of the A-Bomb Survivor Movement has been conducted regularly since 1979. In 1998, this survey confirmed that 273,212 had died by that year. A total of 30,017 names were added to the register of A-bomb victims between 1999 and 2004. Thus, the total number of A-bomb victims is now estimated to have exceeded 300,000.