Life after a nuclear explosion: 10 facts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Photo

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima had killed hundreds of thousands of lives.

At the final stage of the Second world war, on 6 and 9 August 1945, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed by nuclear bombs dropped by the U.S. armed forces to expedite the surrender of Japan.

Since then there have been many nuclear threats posed by various countries of the world, but nevertheless only these two cities remain the only victims of a nuclear attack. Here are some interesting facts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki that you may have never heard of.

1. Oleander is the official flower of Hiroshima because it was the first plant that started to bloom after a nuclear attack.

2. Six Ginkgo trees growing about 1.6 km from the place of fall of the bomb in Nagasaki, received heavy damage in the explosion. Surprisingly, they all survived, and soon the burned trunks has a new kidney. Now the Ginkgo tree is a symbol of hope in Japan.

3. In Japanese language there is a word hibakusha, which translates as “the people affected by the explosion.” Call those who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

4. Every year on August 6 in memorial peace Park in Hiroshima, a ceremony of memory, and at exactly 8:15 (time of explosion) which occurs a moment of silence.

5. Hiroshima continues to advocate the abolition of all nuclear weapons, and the mayor is the President of the movement for peace and the elimination of the nuclear Arsenal by 2020.

6. Only in 1958 the population of Hiroshima reached 410 000 people and finally exceeded the number of population before the war. Today the city is home to 1.2 million people.

7. According to some estimates, about 10% of the victims of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were Koreans. Most of them were forced laborers, producing weapons and ammunition for the Japanese military. Today, both cities continue to have large Korean communities.

8. Among the children born to those who were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the time of the explosion, there were no mutations or serious health problems.

9. Despite this, survivors of the bombing and their children were exposed to serious discrimination, mainly because prevailed in society ignorant views on the effects of radiation sickness. Many of them find it difficult to find work or to marry, since most people believed that radiation sickness is contagious and hereditary.

10. The famous Japanese monster, a giant Godzilla was initially devised as a metaphor of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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