Japan's annual commemorations of the Aug. 6, 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima were particularly poignant this year, with thoughts quickly turning to those living near the Fukushima Nuclear Plant left crippled by the devastating March earthquake and tsunami.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/hiroshima-anniversary-fukushima-nuclear-plant_n_919529.html#s323248
As the Japan Times is reporting, many Hiroshima survivors and family members expressed solidarity with Fukushima victims during ceremonies on the eve of the 66th anniversary. "Nobody knows the fear and uncertainty Fukushima residents face over radiation levels better than the people of Hiroshima," 68-year-old Setsuko Kumazaki, who lost several relatives in Hiroshima, is quoted as saying.
As the Wall Street Journal reports, this year’s speech by Mayor Kazumi Matsui -- scheduled after a minute-long silence at 8:15 a.m., the time when the U.S. dropped a four-ton uranium bomb in the final days of World War II -- has been much anticipated because he is the city’s first mayor born after 1945, and the son of an A-bomb survivor. A U.S. representative is scheduled to attend the ceremony for the first time, the BBC reports.
Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has vowed to scale back the nation's reliance on nuclear power and make more use of solar energy and other renewable power sources.
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---In the summer of 1945, my father was a 20 year old soldier whose troop was stationed near Hiroshima.
On August 7th, the day after the Hiroshima bombing, his troop was ordered to go to the ruined city for relief activities. He ended up staying in the middle of aftermath for 10 days for picking up a tremendous number of unidentified bodies and cremating them in various spots such as school yards and railroad tracks.
While he was staying there, he took food & water anything available, and at night he dig a hole in the wet ground to sleep in it. Soon many of his fellow soldiers started having mysterious sickness includes diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, headaches, etc - that became clear later as a “Radiation sickness” or “Acute Radiation Syndrome.”
Surprisingly, my father did not suffer seriously from those radiation sickness. Considering he was sickly skinny young man who barely passed the physical exam for conscription, that was miracle. Next 60 years of his life, he was basically fine owing largely to my mother's strict dietary management. But he had never forgotten what he saw there. Once I was about 12, he drew a picture and explained to us about what he actually saw there, very graphically. That was a shocking experience to any children and he did not do the same thing never again.
About the time when he was turning 80, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. It was hard to say whether or not his cancer was caused from the incident that he spent 10 days in Hiroshima 60 years earlier. However, according to mother, just a few months before he died at the age of 84, he applied to the Japanese government to issue him an official certificate of A-bomb victims (Hibakusha Techo).
I didn't know but indeed those people who worked for rescuing duties right after the bombing were included as the eligible recipients. But why he wanted to do so at the nearly end of his life? For money? He was a well-to do businessman who hardly needed financial support from the government. I guess, probably he wanted to convince himself before leaving this life, that his illness came from having been there, working for his own country.
