Nagasaki, Japan (AP) – The 80th anniversary of the atomic bomb The Associated Press in Nagasaki, Japan, is reissuing extraordinary photos of survivors of the attack.
Sumiteru Taniguchi, who passed away in 2017, was 16 years old when a US B-29 dropped a bomb in the city. The wounds on his back were held in the silent witness that day, August 9, 1945, in tacit testimony engraved on his body that day.
Published in 2015 by Tokyo’s Associated Press Chief Cameraman Eugene Hoshiko, the photograph shows more than the remains of extreme trauma. Taniguchi thought they were warnings, the evidence presented freely could not say that no one had ever seen them The horrible consequences of nuclear war.
(86-year-old Taniguchi (86), a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bomb, shows a photo of himself taken in an interview in his office in southern Southern Japan on June 30, 2015 in 1945 (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
Sumiteru Taniguchi, 86, survivors of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing will pause on June 30, 2015 during an interview in his office in Nagasaki, southern Japan.
(Taniguchi, 86, survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing, shows the photograph during an interview on June 30, 2015 at his office in Nagasaki, southern Japan.
(Taniguchi, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bomb, shows a scar on his back during an interview in his office in Nagasaki, southern Japan on June 30, 2015.
(Taniguchi, 86, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing, showed a scar on his arm in an interview in his office in Nagasaki, southern Japan on June 30, 2015.
(Taniguchi, 86, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing, shows a burn on his back in an interview in his office in Nagasaki, southern Japan on June 30, 2015 (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
(Taniguchi, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing, sat for a photo during an interview at his office in Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, southern Japan on June 30, 2015 (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
(Taniguchi, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bomb, removes clothes in an interview in his office in Nagasaki, southern Japan on June 30, 2015, to show scars on his body.
(Taniguchi, 86, 86, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bomb, is wearing his fabric after taking a photo in an interview in his office in Nagasaki, southern Japan on June 30, 2015.
Taniguchi’s legacy endures even after his death. As co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, he has been working as a Japanese organization. US atomic bomb survivors For decades in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he helped lead activists in search of an end to nuclear weapons.
When the Japanese Hidankyo was awarded 2024 Nobel Peace Prizemany recall Taniguchi’s quiet, unshakable voice and the scars he refused to hide.
Here is the original 2015 story published on the 70th anniversary of the attack:
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A little struggle with his left arm, who had never been straightened, Taniguchi slowly peeled the skin from the frail 86-year-old body, showing two visitors the scars from the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki.
For 70 years he lived with them, and the nets of wounds covering most of his back, and the remains of three ribs that were half rotten and permanently pressed against his lungs, exhale, making it difficult to breathe. His wife applies moisturizing cream every morning to reduce irritation from the scars. The day passes without pain.
He was 16 years old and he was working as a letter career when a powerful blast threw him off his bike. He was about 1.8 km (1.1 miles) from the epicenter of the “Fatman” plutonium bomb that exploded Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, killing more than 70,000 people. Six days later, Japan surrendered and ended World War II.
Speaking in a weak voice with some effort, he told the story of wandering for three days last month, unaware of the seriousness of his injuries. He felt something like a shabby cloth hanging from his back, shoulders and arms. It was his skin.
He spent the next 21 months lying on his stomach, receiving treatment behind the burning back, breaking down the flesh and exposing his bones. As he came and went from consciousness, he could hear nurses passing by in the hallway asking each other if the boy was still breathing. He thought, “I’ll just kill me.”
He lay still for so long that he blocked the elbow joint as one of his teenage arm bones grew and he was unable to fully extend his elbow.
Taniguchi hopes that no one else needs to suffer from the pain of nuclear weapons. He leads a Nagasaki survivor group working against nuclear proliferation, but old age and pneumonia make it more difficult for him to play an active role. Years later, his words are frustrated.
“I want this to be the end,” he said.
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This is a photo gallery curated by the Associated Press photo editor.
