Sunao Tsuboi, one of the best-known atomic bomb survivors, dies

The Japanese Sunao Tsuboi, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, died last Sunday at the age of 96, according to the family of one of the country’s best known “hibakusha” and anti-nuclear activists.

Tsuboi was 20 years old and a university student when the western Japanese city was the target of the first nuclear attack in history, which surprised him on his way to his study center and caused severe burns to his face and arm.

The scars that remained were one of his hallmarks during a life that devoted himself to teaching and anti-nuclear activism, serving as president of the Atomic Bomb Survivors Association (known in Japanese as “hibakusha”) and traveling the world to tell your story.

“It was like a huge flash of light. I covered my eyes and fled. When I got up I realized that I was covered in blood,” said Tsuboi, who had a brief meeting with former US President Barack Obama, on his historic visit to Hiroshima in 2016.

The old Japanese man said that he wanted to thank the US president for his visit and tell him that he did not hold any grudges, before the ceremony in memory of the victims held in the Peace Park on the 71st anniversary of the bombing.

Tsuboi “helped our goal of achieving a world without nuclear weapons on different occasions,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who also has roots in Hiroshima, said today and said that he will “engrave in his memory” the legacy of the “hibakusha”. in a message through his official Twitter account.

The atomic bomb dropped on August 6, 1945 reduced Hiroshima to rubble and ash and killed nearly 140,000 people on the spot, although the death toll subsequently rose to nearly 329,000 from the effects of radiation.

The United States carried out a second nuclear attack on Nagasaki three days later that also left hundreds of thousands dead and forced the Japanese capitulation and the end of World War II.

Tsuboi was one of the 127,755 survivors of the atomic attacks on both cities who remained alive, according to data provided last August by the Japanese government, which also showed an average age of the “hibakusha” of 83.94 years. (I)