Double A-bomb survivor dies in Japan

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2010/January/international_January252.xml§ion=international

(AP)

6 January 2010, TOKYO — Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only person officially recognized as a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings at the end of World War II, has died at age 93, media reports said Wednesday.

Yamaguchi died of stomach cancer on Monday, the mass circulation Mainichi, Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers reported.

Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip for his shipbuilding company on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city.

He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) southwest, which suffered a second U.S. atomic bomb attack three days later.

[trumad]

1. His name should be synonymous with bad luck...

[brendan120678]

3. Sounds like a pretty lucky guy, actually...

He survived two nuclear bombs.

140,000 people died in Hiroshima.
70,000 people died in Nagasaki.

He survived both.

[trumad]

4. True...LOL

[The Doctor.]

5. He came in at #1 on Cracked.com's list;

http://www.cracked.com/article_17416_p2.html

[NNN0LHI]

2. He remembered hearing the Enola Gay circling above, but thought nothing of it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/25/hiroshima-nagasaki-survivor-japan

A little deaf in one ear - meet the Japanese man who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki

• Japan recognises the only known survivor of bombs
• 93-year-old fled first attack only to suffer second blast

Justin McCurry in Tokyo The Guardian, Wednesday 25 March 2009

It seems almost improper to suggest that fortune was smiling on Tsutomu Yamaguchi in the dying days of the second world war.

On 6 August 1945, he was in Hiroshima, preparing to return home from a business trip when the American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on the city. Yamaguchi lived, while 140,000 other people who were in the city that morning died, some in an agonising instant, others many months later.

Burned and barely able to comprehend what had happened - only that he had witnessed a bomb unlike any used before - Yamaguchi spent a fitful night in an air raid shelter before returning home the following day.

That home, 180 miles to the west, was Nagasaki. His arrival came the day before it was devastated by a second US atomic bomb on 9 August.

In a barely conceivable course of events, he had twice been perilously close to nuclear ground zero; and both times he had lived. More than 70,000 other residents of Nagasaki were not so lucky.

More than 60 years later, the 93-year-old became the first and only known survivor of both attacks yesterday to win official recognition from Japanese authorities.

[Xenotime]

6. May he finally have rest from all the suffering the US brought to him and his family.

:cry: :grouphug: