Hibakusha

As of 31 March 2024[update], 106,825 were still alive, mostly in Japan,[5] and in 2024 are expected to surpass the number of surviving US World War veterans.

During the 1970s, non-Japanese hibakusha 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.

[13] For many years, Koreans had a difficult time fighting for recognition as atomic bomb victims and were denied health benefits.

[14] 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.

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.

Many were war brides, or Japanese women who had married American men related to the U.S. military's occupation of Japan.

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.

[31][32][33] 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.

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.

[38][39] 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.

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.
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
The Boy Standing by the Crematory , a historic photograph taken in Nagasaki, Japan , in September 1945, shortly after the atomic bombing of that city on August 9, 1945. The photograph is of a boy of about 10 years old with his dead baby brother strapped to his back, waiting for his turn at the crematorium .
Terumi Tanaka , hibakusha 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.
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
Tamiki Hara , poet, writer and literature professor