Nuclear Attack On Hiroshima And Nagasaki

The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. The consent of the United Kingdom was obtained for the bombing, as was required by the Quebec Agreement, and orders were issued on 25 July for atomic bombs to be used against Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki. Seventy-four years have passed since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Approximately 210,000 victims died, and another 210,000 people survived. This atomic bomb caused a serious disease which is called leukemia.

The nuclear weapons were made by the knowledge of a group of eminent nuclear physicists, including winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics such as Enrico Fermi. Seventy-one years later, President Barack Obama visited Hiroshima in 2016 as the first sitting US President to commemorate atomic-bomb victims and gave an address at Peace Memorial Park. The impact of a slow (low-energy) neutron splitting the nucleus of the uranium isotope U-235 into two new nuclei. It appeared to American leaders that the only way to compel Japan’s unconditional surrender was to invade and conquer the Japanese home islands. Although an estimated 300,000 Japanese civilians had already died from starvation and bombing raids, Japan’s government showed no sign of capitulation. At 2:45 A.M. on Monday, August 6, 1945, three American B-29 bombers of the 509th Composite Group took off from an airfield on the Pacific island of Tinian, 1,500 miles south of Japan.

By: Anirudha Sharma
Government Senior Secondary School, Bopara