Two times lucky
Japanese engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi has often been labeled as ‘the luckiest person in the world’. After all, he survived not one, but two nuclear explosions!
While there are 160 people who are believed to have been present and survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Yamaguchi is officially recognised by Japan as the only person to have survived both.
In August 1945, Yamaguchi, who worked for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was posted in Hiroshima. He was preparing to leave the city on the ill-fated morning of 6 August, when the bomb ‘Little Boy’ was dropped.
The explosion killed nearly 1,40,000 people. Yamaguchi, who was less than two kilometers away from ground zero, suffered a ruptured eardrum and serious burns on his upper body.
Yamaguchi spent the night in the city in an air-raid shelter, nursing his wounds. The next morning, he boarded a train to Nagasaki, his home, unaware of what lay ahead.
In his interviews, Yamaguchi often mentions how three days later, while he was recounting the horror of Hiroshima to his supervisor — who had a tough time believing it — the bomb ‘Fat Man’ was dropped on Nagasaki. Around 75,000 people lost their lives.
An anti-nuclear weapons crusader
While he survived, Yamaguchi paid a steep price. His skin wounds had to be bandaged for twelve years. He also suffered from temporary baldness and deafness in one ear. He lived till the age of 93 and went on to become an anti-nuclear weapons campaigner later in life.
Yamaguchi later appeared in Nijû Hibaku (Twice Bombed), a documentary film made on his story that also featured Hollywood director James Cameron. Yamaguchi’s story is also the focal point of Charles R. Pellegrino’s book ‘The Last Train from Hiroshima’.
*This article has been curated by Hook. All claims and opinions expressed belong to the original author. Hook does not verify or endorse the information presented and is not responsible for its accuracy.*
