On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. And for some of the approximately 80,000 people who lost their lives, only a nuclear shadow remained.
When the bomb detonated at 1,900 feet above the city center, the subsequent explosion caused temperatures of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit to annihilate nearly everything within 1,600 feet of the bomb’s blast zone. Almost anything and anyone within a mile was destroyed.
The bomb’s light and heat were so extreme that they bleached the city’s exposed surfaces, except in places where an unsuspecting person shielded the building or sidewalk or bridge from the blast with their own body in their final moments alive.
