The picture above is a little nondescript and perhaps not worthy of inclusion into an album about Japan. It was also a very unfortunate place to be at 8.15 on the morning of the 6th August 1945. When a different view of the same bridge...
...is taken, it takes on a very different, if somewhat sinister significance because this is the Aioi Bridge (replaced in the 60's) and was the aiming point for the first nuclear bomb dropped on an inhabited city. In actual fact, the epicentre of the blast occurrred perhaps 100m behind the famous remains of the 'A' bomb dome and occurred some 600m from the ground...
...somewhere almost directly over the white, slab tower block in the background. Contemporary accounts estimate that the super-hot fireball...
...shown very graphically in the model, was:
... "over (several million degrees in the centre) emitted thermal rays that were primarily ultraviolet and visible light radiation. The temperature on the ground near the hypocenter reached three to four thousand degrees Celsius. The fireball also crated a super-sonic shock wave and pressures of several hundred thousand atmospheres. On the ground near the hypocenter, this pressure reached 35 tons per square meter. The initial shock wave was followed by winds blowing up to 440 meters per second"
The aerial photo taken shortly afterwards shows the Aioi bridge ( the point near the telegraph pole where Alyson stood for the picture can also be seen) and the almost total devastation wrought on the city.
The central section between the rivers ( Sarugaku-cho) was never rebuilt and is now the Hiroshima Peace Park, where at one end is the museum detailing the events of the 6th August. Entry is free and the visitor is able to wander through the poignant and often harrowing exhibits. I was particularly stuck by the faded image of 'the man who never was', an individual sitting on the steps of...
...the bank at 8.15 when the bomb exploded. All that remains of his instant vapourisation is a grey, ghostly outline burnt into the granite. As the mushroom cloud boiled upwards, it sucked up soot and dirt from the city...
...which shortly afterwards fell as the notorious 'Black Rain' The survivors of the blast, in their parched agony, drank the liquid, not knowing that is was highly radioactive. There are many dozens of artefacts rescued from the city and preserved in the museum, but one photo selected at random shows...
...the burnt and twisted remains of a child's tricycle.
Perhaps one of the saddest episodes is the tale of little Sadako Sasaki, shown in the picture below.
This small girl, shown in her school uniform, was 1700m from the epicentre of the blast and survived with what appeared to be no adverse effects. In the late forties, she fell gravely ill with leukaemia and over the course of the following few years, the illness spiralled out of control and she died sometime in the early fifties. Such was her will to live that she made thousands of paper cranes (the national bird)...
...some of which can be seen above. Many were tiny, some no larger than a match head and had to be folded with a needle. The death of Sadako inspired the Children's Peace Movement and a monument to her exists quite near the Aioi bridge.
In case you're wondering about the contents of the glass display cases, they contain thousands and thousands of paper cranes.
The whole area in front of the museum (shown below) is now a tranquil park where regular remembrance services are conducted by local school children.
In contrast to the Peace Park, the following day was spent at Miyajima Island, a sacred place just to the south of the city. This is the site of the famous O Torii gate, a huge orange structure out in the bay. Unfortunately, it had been damaged in a recent storm and was under repair at the time so it wasn't worth taking any pictures of it, but later on we did encounter a small shop where...
...a local craftsman was producing woodcarvings of the gate, which turned out to be considerably more expensive than a digital snap!
The highlight of the day was a strenuous climb up to the top of Mount Misen, around 600m, with Alyson...
...leading the way. The view from the top was fairly spectacular, if a little misty, though the most disappointing thing and without doubt the shoddiest building I ever saw in three weeks in Japan...
The way down was equally as strenuous, with Alyson again out in front...
...but towards the bottom of the path, we came upon a newly constructed...
...and quite exquisite little shrine.
Shortly afterwards, we came to the rather grand Daisho-in temple right at the bottom of the hill...
...where another flourishing, hand drawn stamp was made in Alyson's Goshuin-chou book.
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