Preparedness Notes for Sunday – August 06, 2017

On August 6th, 1945 at 8:16 a.m. (Japanese time), an American B-29 bomber– the Enola Gay– dropped the world’s first war-time atom bomb over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people were killed as a result of the blast, with another 35,000 injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. History is always written by the victors, so the reasoning and justification for this will be argued for years to come. But one thing is for sure: this action officially ushered in the nuclear age in war and has generated mass fear among civilization ever since, even though the firebombing of Japanese cities caused far more damage and loss of life. An interesting side note is Tsutomu Yamaguchi was 3km from the Hiroshima blast but survived. Along with a few other survivors, he made his way to his hometown, Nagasaki, and was again within 3km of the second blast yet survived this one also.