Hibakusha

A hibakusha of Hiroshima with symptomatic nuclear burns; the pattern on her skin is from the kimono she was wearing at the moment of the flash.

( or ; Template:Langx or ; Template:Lit. or 'person affected by exposure [to radioactivity]') is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people not affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II.

Definition

The word is Japanese, originally written in kanji. While the term ( 'particle indicating passive mood of the subsequent verb' + 'to bomb' + 'person') has been used before in Japanese to designate any victim of bombs, its worldwide democratization led to a definition concerning the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped in Japan by the United States Army Air Forces on 6 and 9 August 1945.

Anti-nuclear movements and associations, among others of , spread the term to designate any direct victim of nuclear disaster, including the ones of the nuclear plant in Fukushima. They, therefore, prefer the writing (replacing 'to bomb' with the homophonous ' to expose to s.t.') or 'person exposed to radiation, a person affected by nuclear exposure'. This definition tends to be adopted since 2011.

The legal status of is allocated to certain people, mainly by the Japanese government.

Official recognition

The Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law defines as people who fall into one or more of the following categories: within a few kilometers of the hypocenters of the bombs; within 2 km (1.2 mi) of the hypocenters within two weeks of the bombings; exposed to radiation from fallout; or not yet born but carried by pregnant women in any of the three previously mentioned categories. The Japanese government has recognized about 650,000 people as . As of 31 March 2025, 99,130 were still alive, mostly in Japan. The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation. are entitled to government support. They receive a certain amount of allowance per month, and the ones certified as suffering from bomb-related diseases receive a special medical allowance.

The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the who are known to have died since the bombings. Updated annually on the anniversaries of the bombings, as of August 2025, the memorials record the names of more than 550,000 ; 349,246 in Hiroshima and 201,942 in Nagasaki.

Citizens of Hiroshima walk by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the closest building to Ground Zero not to have collapsed from "Little Boy".

A photograph of Sumiteru Taniguchi's back injuries taken in January 1946 by a U.S. Marine photographer

In 1957, the Japanese Parliament passed a law providing free medical care for . During the 1970s, non-Japanese who suffered from those atomic attacks began to demand the right to free medical care and the right to stay in Japan for that purpose. In 1978, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled that such persons were entitled to free medical care while staying in Japan.

Korean survivors

During the war, Korea had been under Japanese imperial rule and many Koreans were living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombings. More than 2 million Koreans migrated to Japan during the colonial period as a result of financial hardship on the peninsula. Others were either mobilized as laborers or soldiers during World War II. Those who remained in postwar Japan after the atomic bombings were called Zainichi Korean hibakusha. According to recent estimates, about 20,000 Koreans were killed in Hiroshima and about 2,000 died in Nagasaki. It is estimated that one in seven of the Hiroshima victims was of Korean ancestry. The exact number of Korean victims remains unknown; however, the amount of those exposed to radiation increased as laborers were mobilized to provide response and relief to areas that were directly affected.

For many years, Koreans had a difficult time fighting for recognition as atomic bomb victims and were denied health benefits. Some reported discriminatory treatment in applying for allowances and survivor certificates. Others were unable to access information on government relief and healthcare due to literacy barriers. Some of these issues have been addressed in recent years through lawsuits.

Efforts to commemorate Korean victims have been contentious within the context of both North-South Korean divisions, as well as Korean-Japanese relations. The emergence of Cold War geopolitical tensions complicated Zainichi Korean hibakusha efforts to advocate for redress and recognition for Korean victims as the Zainichi community grappled with divisions on their home peninsula.

Several Zainichi Korean hibakusha memorials exist in Japan today, including the Chosen-jin Hibakusha Memorial in Nagasaki Peace Park, as well as the Hiroshima Kankoku-jin Hibakusha Cenotaph. The cenotaph was heavily disputed in terms of its original placement outside of the Peace Memorial Park, as well as its engravings. At the end of the 1990s, joint talks between Hiroshima City mayor Hiraoka Takashi, as well as members of both Mindan and Soren—the two, prominent Zainichi Korean organizations in Japan—helped facilitate the transfer of the cenotaph within the park, which was completed in 1999.

Japanese-American survivors

It was a common practice before the war for American Issei, or first-generation immigrants, to send their children on extended trips to Japan to study or visit relatives. More Japanese immigrated to the U.S. from Hiroshima than any other prefecture, and Nagasaki also sent many immigrants to Hawai'i and the mainland. There was, therefore, a sizable population of American-born Nisei and Kibei living in their parents' hometowns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombings. The actual number of Japanese Americans affected by the bombings is unknown – although estimates put approximately 11,000 in Hiroshima city alone – but some 3,000 of them are known to have survived and returned to the U.S. after the war.

A second group of counted among Japanese American survivors are those who came to the U.S. in a later wave of Japanese immigration during the 1950s and 1960s. Most in this group were born in Japan and migrated to the U.S. in search of educational and work opportunities that were scarce in post-war Japan. Many were war brides, or Japanese women who had married American men related to the U.S. military's occupation of Japan.

As of 2014, there are about 1,000 recorded Japanese American living in the United States. They receive monetary support from the Japanese government and biannual medical checkups with Hiroshima and Nagasaki doctors familiar with the particular concerns of atomic bomb survivors. The U.S. government provides no support to Japanese American .

Other foreign survivors

While one British Commonwealth citizen and seven Dutch POWs (two names known) died in the Nagasaki bombing, at least two POWs reportedly died postwar from cancer thought to have been caused by the atomic bomb. One American POW, the Navajo Joe Kieyoomia, was in Nagasaki at the time of the bombing but survived, reportedly having been shielded from the effects of the bomb by the concrete walls of his cell.

Double survivors

People who suffered the effects of both bombings are known as in Japan. These people were in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and within two days managed to reach Nagasaki.

A documentary called Twice Bombed, Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was produced in 2006. The producers found 165 people who were victims of both bombings, and the production was screened at the United Nations.

On 24 March 2009, the Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916–2010) as a double . Yamaguchi was confirmed to be 3 km (1.9 mi) from ground zero in Hiroshima on a business trip when the bomb was detonated. He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the night in Hiroshima. He got back to his home city of Nagasaki on 8 August, a day before the bomb in Nagasaki was dropped, and he was exposed to residual radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first officially recognized survivor of both bombings. Yamaguchi died at the age of 93 on 4 January 2010 of stomach cancer.

Discrimination

Terumi Tanaka, of Nagasaki, tells young people about his experience and shows pictures. United Nations's International Atomic Energy Agency building in Vienna, during the NPT PrepCom 2007.

and their children were (and still are) victims of severe discrimination when it comes to prospects of marriage or work due to public ignorance about the consequences of radiation sickness, with much of the public believing it to be hereditary or even contagious. This is despite the fact that no statistically demonstrable increase of birth defects or congenital malformations was found among the later conceived children born to survivors of the nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or found in the later conceived children of cancer survivors who had previously received radiotherapy. The surviving women of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who could conceive, and were exposed to substantial amounts of radiation, went on and had children with no higher incidence of abnormalities or birth defects than the rate observed in the Japanese population.

Studs Terkel's book The Good War includes a conversation with two . The postscript observes:

There is considerable discrimination in Japan against the hibakusha. It is frequently extended toward their children as well: socially as well as economically. "Not only hibakusha but their children, are refused employment," says Mr. Kito. "There are many among them who do not want it known that they are hibakusha."

— Studs Terkel (1984), The Good War.

The is a group formed by in 1956 with the goals of pressuring the Japanese government to improve support of the victims and lobbying governments for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Some estimates are that 140,000 people in Hiroshima (38.9% of the population) and 70,000 people in Nagasaki (28.0% of the population) died in 1945, but how many died immediately as a result of exposure to the blast, heat, or due to radiation, is unknown. One Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) report discusses 6,882 people examined in Hiroshima, and 6,621 people examined in Nagasaki, who were largely within 2000 meters from the hypocenter, who suffered injuries from the blast and heat but died from complications frequently compounded by acute radiation syndrome (ARS), all within about 20–30 days.

In the rare cases of survival for individuals who were in utero at the time of the bombing and yet who still were close enough to be exposed to less than or equal to 0.57 Gy, no difference in their cognitive abilities was found, suggesting a threshold dose for pregnancies below which there is no danger. In 50 or so children who survived the gestational process and were exposed to more than this dose, putting them within about 1000 meters from the hypocenter, microcephaly was observed; this is the only elevated birth defect issue observed in the , occurring in approximately 50 in-utero individuals who were situated less than 1000 meters from the bombings.

In a manner dependent on their distance from the hypocenter, in the 1987 Life Span Study, conducted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, a statistical excess of 507 cancers, of undefined lethality, were observed in 79,972 who had still been living between 1958–1987 and who took part in the study.

An epidemiology study by the RERF estimates that from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of solid cancers, of unspecified lethality, could be due to radiation from the bombs, with the statistical excess being estimated at 200 leukemia deaths and 1,700 solid cancers of undeclared lethality.

Health

• Effects of nuclear explosions on human health
• Radiation poisoning

Notable

Isao Harimoto, ethnic Korean former Nippon Professional Baseball player and holder of the record for most hits in the Japanese professional leagues. Inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990.

Setsuko Thurlow, Japanese-Canadian anti-nuclear peace activist and ambassador and keynote speaker for the reception of the Nobel Peace Prize of ICAN, 27 October 2017

Hiroshima

• Hiroshima Maidens – 25 young women who had surgery in the US after the war
• Hubert Schiffer – Jesuit priest at Hiroshima
• Ikuo Hirayama – of Hiroshima at 15 years old, painter
• Isao Harimoto – of Hiroshima at 5 years old, ethnic Korean baseball professional player
• Issey Miyake – of Hiroshima at 7 years old, clothing designer
• Julia Canny – Irish nun who survived Hiroshima and aided survivors
• Keiji Nakazawa – of Hiroshima at 6 years old, author of Barefoot Gen and other anti-war manga.
• Kiyoshi Tanimoto – at 36 years old, Methodist minister, anti-nuclear activist, helped Hiroshima Maidens and to gain social rights. Peace prize named after him
• Koko Kondo – of Hiroshima at 1 year old, notable peace activist and daughter of Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto
• Masaru Kawasaki – of Hiroshima at 19 years old, composer of the dirge performed at every Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony since 1975
• Michihiko Hachiya – of Hiroshima at 42 years old, physician specialized in , writer of Hiroshima Diary
• Sadako Kurihara – of Hiroshima at 32 years old, poet, anti-nuclear activist, founder of ('Mothers of Hiroshima')
• Sadako Sasaki – at 2 years old, well known for her goal to fold a thousand origami cranes in order to cure herself of leukemia and as a symbol of peace
• Sankichi Tōge – at 28 years old, poet and militant
• Setsuko Thurlow – of Hiroshima at 13 years old, anti-nuclear activist, ambassador, and keynote speaker at the reception of the Nobel Peace Prize of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
• Shigeaki Mori – a historian of allied prisoners of war
• Shigeko Sasamori – advocate for peace and nuclear disarmament
• Shinoe Shōda – at 34 years old, writer and poet
• Shuntaro Hida – of Hiroshima at 28 years old, physician specialized in treating
• Sunao Tsuboi – of Hiroshima at 20 years old, teacher and activist with Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations

Tamiki Hara, poet, writer and literature professor

• Tamiki Hara – of Hiroshima at 39 years old, poet, writer, and university professor
• Tomotaka Tasaka – of Hiroshima at 43 years old, film director and scriptwriter
• Toshiko Saiki – hibakusha of Hiroshima at 25, peace activist
• Yoko Ota – of Hiroshima at 38 years old, writer
• Yoshito Matsushige – of Hiroshima at 32 years old, has taken the only five pictures known the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
• Shigeru Nakamura – of Hiroshima at 34 years old, supercentenarian, former oldest living Japanese man (11 January 1911 – 15 November 2022).

Nagasaki

• Joe Kieyoomia – an American Navajo prisoner of war who survived both the Bataan Death March and the Nagasaki bombing
• Kyoko Hayashi – of Nagasaki at 14 years old, writer
• Osamu Shimomura – organic chemist and marine biologist; Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008
• Sumiteru Taniguchi – at 16 years old, known for a picture of him with his back skinless taken by a Marine; anti-nuclear peace activist, president of the council of the A-Bomb of Nagasaki, co-president of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations in 2010
• Takashi Nagai – of Nagasaki at 38 years old, doctor and author of The Bells of Nagasaki
• Terumi Tanaka – of Nagasaki at 13 years old, engineer and associated professor at the University of Tohoku, an activist with Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations
• Yōsuke Yamahata – military photographer, not a direct victim of the Bomb but took pictures of Nagasaki the next day. Died of cancer. Can be considered a according to the ABCC classification.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

• Tsutomu Yamaguchi – the first person officially recognized to have survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.

Artistic representations and documentaries

Literature

literature

• Summer Flowers (Template:Nihongo krt), Tamiki Hara, 1946
• From the Ruins (Template:Nihongo krt), Tamiki Hara, 1947
• Prelude to Annihilation (Template:Nihongo krt), Tamiki Hara, 1949
• City of Corpses (Template:Nihongo krt), Yōko Ōta, 1948
• Human Rags (Template:Nihongo krt), Yōko Ōta, 1951
• Penitence (Template:Nihongo krt), Shinoe Shōda, 1947 – collection of tanka poems
• Bringing Forth New Life (Template:Nihongo krt), Sadako Kurihara, 1946
• I, A Hiroshima Witness (Template:Nihongo krt), Sadako Kurihara, 1967
• Documents about Hiroshima Twenty-Four Years Later (), Sadako Kurihara, 1970
• Ritual of Death (Template:Nihongo krt), Kyōko Hayashi, 1975
• Poems of the Atomic Bomb (Template:Nihongo krt), Sankichi Tōge, 1951
• The bells of Nagasaki (Template:Nihongo krt), Takashi Nagai, 1949
• Little boy: stories of days in Hiroshima, Shuntaro Hida, 1984
• Letters from the end of the world: a firsthand account of the bombing of Hiroshima, Toyofumi Ogura, 1997
• The day the sun fell – I was 14 years old in Hiroshima, Hashizume Bun, 2007
• Yoko's Diary: The Life of a Young Girl in Hiroshima During World War II, Yoko Hosokawa
• Hiroshima Diary, Michihiko Hachiya, 1955
• One year ago Hiroshima (), Hisashi Tohara, 1946

Non- literature

• Hiroshima Notes (Template:Nihongo krt), Kenzaburô Ooe, 1965
• Black Rain (Template:Nihongo krt), Masuji Ibuse, 1965
• Hiroshima, Makoto Oda, 1981
• (), Yūichi Seirai, 2006
• Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Eleanor Coerr, 1977
• (Ashes of Hiroshima), Othman Puteh and Abdul Razak Abdul Hamid, 1987
• Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie, 2009
• Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, Susan Southard, 2015
• Hiroshima, John Hersey, 1946
• Hibakusha (2015 short story)

Manga and anime

• Barefoot Gen (Template:Nihongo krt), Keiji Nakazawa, 1973–1974, 10 volumes (also adapted in film in 1976, 1983 and a TV drama in 2007)
• Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Template:Nihongo krt), Fumiyo Kōno, 2003–2004 (adapted into novel and film in 2007)
• Hibakusha, Steve Nguyen and Choz Belen, 2012
• Bōshi (), Hiroshi Kurosaki, NHK, 2008, 90 minutes
• In This Corner of the World (Template:Nihongo krt), Masao Maruyama, MAPPA, 2016

Films

• Children of Hiroshima (Template:Nihongo krt), Kaneto Shindo, 1952
• Frankenstein vs. Baragon (Template:Nihongo krt), Ishirō Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya, 1965
• Black Rain (Template:Nihongo krt), Shohei Imamura, 1989
• The bells of Nagasaki (Template:Nihongo krt), Hideo Ōba, 1950
• Rhapsody in August (Template:Nihongo krt), Akira Kurosawa, 1991
• Hiroshima mon amour, Alain Resnais, 1959
• Hiroshima, Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode, 1995
• Touch, Baltasar Kormákur, 2024

Music

• Silent Planet, Darkstrand (), 2013
• Masaru Kawazaki, March forward for peace, 1966
• Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, 1961
• Masao Ohki, Symphony n^o 5 "Hiroshima", 1953
• Toshio Hosokawa, Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima, 1989–2001

Fine art painting and contemporary arts

• The Hiroshima Panels (原爆の図, Genbaku no zu; 1950–1982) a series of painted folding panels by Toshi Maruki and Iri Maruki.
• Hiroshima (1961) by French painter Yves Klein
• (Template:Nihongo krt) (1979), Ikuo Hirayama
• Carl Randall (UK artist who met and painted portraits of in Hiroshima, 2006–2009)
• Kei Ito, US-based Japanese artist who created experimental works inspired by his hibakusha grandfather Takeshi Ito and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
• Layla Yamamoto, Japanese artist who paints works about US-Japanese history, nuclear weapons, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Performing arts

• characters are featured in several Japanese plays including The Elephant by Minoru Betsuyaku

Documentaries

• No More Hiroshima, Martin Duckworth, 1984
• Hiroshima: The real History, Lucy van Beek, Brook Lapping Productions 2015
• Hiroshima Witness, Hiroshima Peace Cultural Center and NHK, 1986
• Hiroshima, Paul Wilmshurst, BBC, 2005, 89 minutes
• White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Steven Okazaki, HBO, 2007, 86 minutes
• Als die Sonne vom Himmel fiel, Aya Domenig, 2015, 78 minutes
• Atomic Wounds, Journeyman Pictures, 2008

See also

• Atomic veteran
• Atomic People
• Castle Bravo
• Doomsday clock
• Fat Man
• H Bomb
• Hibakujumoku
• Hiroshima Peace memorial park
• Little Boy
• Manhattan project
• Nihon Hidankyo
• Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO)
• SCOJ 2005 No.1977
• Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – Preamble

Further reading

• Terkel, Studs, The Good War, Random House:New York, 1984. Template:ISBN
• Hersey, John, Hiroshima, A.A. Knopf: New York, 1985. Template:ISBN

External links

• Nagasaki Archive
• White Light/Black Rain official website (film)
• Voices of the survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Voice of Hibakusha "Eye-witness accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima"
• Hibakusha, fifteen years after the bomb (CBC TV news report)
• Virtual Museum " testimonies, coupled with photographs, memoirs and paintings, give a human face to the tragedy of the A-bombing. Starting in 1986, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation initiated a project to record giving testimonies on video. In each year since, the testimonies of 50 people have been recorded and edited into 20-minute segments per person"
• The Japan Council against A & H Bombs: The Delta of Hiroshima
• The Voice of Hibakusha
• Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission ABCC
• Radiation Effects Research Foundation website
• "Survival in Nagasaki."
• "Living with a double A-bomb surviving parent."
• "Fight against the A-bomb."
• "Contribute actively to peace."
• Hibakusha Testimonies – Online reprints of published sources including excerpts from the Japan Times.
• Hibakusha Stories "Initiative of Youth Arts New York in partnership with Peace Boat, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, and New York Theatre Workshop."
• A-Bomb Survivors: Women Speak Out for Peace – Online DVD Testimonies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Hibakusha with subtitles in 6 different languages.
• Literary Fallout: The legacies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Three Quarters of A Century After Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Hibakusha – Brave Survivors Working for a Nuclear-Free World – Online exhibit launched in 2023 by the No More Hiroshima & Nagasaki Museum.