1942: The United States of America launched the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb. On July 16, 1945, the US successfully conducted the world’s first nuclear test in a desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Immediately after the test, on July 25, an order was issued to drop an atomic bomb in Japan.

The Hiroshima Bomb, on account of its long and narrow shape, was initially called “Thin Man”. However, in the course of its production, the original plans had to be changed. The bomb was shortened and given a new name. It was now called “Little Boy”,

August 6, 1945: A B-29 Bomber, Enola Gay, carrying the atom bomb, left Tinian Islands, a six-and-a-half hour flight. It was accompanied by a plane carrying equipment for measuring the bomb’s destructive power. Another plane followed the Enola Gay for photographing the event. At 7.09 in the morning, a Yellow alert was sounded as the Enola Gay entered Hiroshima’s airspace. At 7.31, the Yellow alert was cleared. At 8.15, before an air-raid warning could be sounded, the atom bomb was dropped.

The air temperature at the point of explosion exceeded a million degrees Celsius. (The maximum temperature of a conventional bomb is approximately 5,000 degrees Celsius.) Immediately after the explosion, intense heat rays and radiation were released in all directions. The clothing on people living within two kilometres of the hypocenter (the ground directly below the point where the bomb exploded) caught fire. Railroad ties and houses made of wood burst into flames. Trees caught fire, and in some cases, old trees burned from inside out, leaving the outer shell of their trunks intact. Buildings as far as six kilometres from the hypocenter sustained major structural damage. Under the impact of the blast, even the wind reversed direction.

The exact number of people who died as a result of the atomic explosion in Hiroshima is not known to this day. Casualty estimates have been complicated because the bomb destroyed all population records of the city and victims continued to die over time as the result of exposure to radiation. Official estimate by the Hiroshima city administration has put the number of dead at 140,000 by the end of December 1945.

The physical harm that the atomic explosion caused to the human body included a combination of burns, broken bones, lacerations and damage to skin and internal organs. Of the total number of dead, 60 per cent died of burns, 20 per cent were killed by injuries and 20 per cent perished due to radiation effects. Exposure to radiation continues to pose threats to the health of survivors even today. The after-effects of radiation include leukemia, cancer and many other diseases that appeared years later. Pregnant women delivered still-born foetuses and the babies who survived infancy continued to die.