Survivors of Hiroshima: 'There is horror here'
They are known as hibakusha — survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945 and another bomb dropped on the coastal city of Nagasaki three days later.
President Obama made a historic visit Friday to Hiroshima, where he embraced survivors.
Here's a roundup of some of their accounts:
Toshiki Fujimori, 72: The one-year-old was sick at the time of the Hiroshima bombing. "My mother was carrying me on her back on the way to the hospital. So we were on a road ... when the bomb occurred,” he said. They luckily avoided a direct blast. “My mother and I were blown over by the blast, but miraculously, somehow we both survived,” Fujimori said. The assistant general secretary of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations) was invited as a guest at Obama's wreath-laying ceremony at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Friday. “Until now we’ve been calling for an apology that would recognize and acknowledge that the atomic bombs were inhumane and also against international law.”
Keiko Ogura, 78: She saw a line of burned people and could smell bodies burning from cremation on the devastating day. "I tell everybody that it was hell. But they don't understand," she told the Japan Times. "There is no peace in Hiroshima. There is horror here."
Toshie Kobata, 84: "All I remember is this flash," she told KCRA-TV. She said that a bomb dropped by a U.S. B-29 detonated about a mile from her school. Kobata recalled that her teacher pushed her to the floor. "He covered me," she told the news organization. Kobata, who didn't have time to collect her belongings, ran barefoot into the street.
"People (were) running around. Students all running around, some of them with blood running down their face," she said, according to KCRA-TV.
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Shigeaki Mori, 79: "I remember the blast suddenly hit me from above. I was blown off the bridge and fell into the river. Because the river was shallow...and the waterweeds growing thick, I survived without injuries and burns," Mori told CNN. On Friday, Mori met Obama in Hiroshima and shed a few tears as the pair embraced. Obama patted Mori on the back and hugged him tightly.
Terumi Tanaka, in his 80s: He was at home and able to survive without serious injuries. Tanaka lost five family members to the bombing. "With our own bare hands we had to cremate their bodies in a field. My cousin and uncle we found in front of their home, their bodies charred completely black," Tanaka said.
He said the scenes of the city days after the bombing were "completely horrific." "In just walking that short distance we could see hundreds of piles of dead bodies and hundreds of people with very severe injuries who hadn’t received any kind of aid. It was (like) something from another world and I came away determined that we could never let something like this happen again,” Tanaka said.
Although after the war Tanaka was physically healthy, the lives of the survivors for the next decade were difficult, he added. Currently secretary general of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations), he was also among the invited guests at the Hiroshima memorial service with Obama.
Sunao Tsuboi, 91: A 20-year-old university student at the time, he endured burns all over his body. Tsuboi, who said he was sure he would die, carved a message on a bridge using a rock: "Here is where Sunao Tsuboi found his end,” The New York Times reported. It would take a year for Tsuboi, now a retired middle school principal, to walk again.
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Misako Katani, 86: She is a rare survivor of both bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Her mother and sister were killed in the first bombing and as she took their ashes to a gravesite in Nagasaki, the second atomic bomb detonated, the Japan Times reported.
"I still vividly remember the scene. It's unforgettable. I almost cry when I revisit the past," she told the news organization. She said that her feelings have changed toward America over the years. "I don't dislike America although I hated it in the past," Katani said.
Contributing: Kirk Spitzer