Trinity A-Bomb, Hiroshima & Nagasaki Destruction: The Atom Strikes 1948 War Dept
more at
http://scitech.quickfound.net/
"THE
FIRST EXPERIMENTAL
BLAST SET OFF IN
NEW MEXICO; BOMBING AND DEVASTATION OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI."
War Department film MISC-1235
Reupload of a previously uploaded film with improved video & sound.
Public domain film from the
US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/
3.0/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
The atomic bombings of the cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
Japan were conducted by the
United States during the final stages of
World War II in
1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.
Following a firebombing campaign that destroyed many
Japanese cities, the
Allies prepared for a costly invasion of Japan. The war in
Europe ended when
Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on 8 May, but the
Pacific War continued.
Together with the
United Kingdom and the
Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the
Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, threatening Japan with "prompt and utter destruction". The
Japanese government ignored this ultimatum, and the United States deployed two nuclear weapons developed by the
Manhattan Project.
American soldiers dropped
Little Boy on the city of
Hiroshima on 6
August 1945, followed by
Fat Man over
Nagasaki on 9 August.
Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000--166,
000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000--80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. The
Hiroshima prefecture health department estimated that, of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In a US estimate of the total immediate and short term cause of death, 15--20% died from radiation sickness, 20--30% from burns, and 50--60% from other injuries, compounded by illness. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizeable garrison.
On
15 August, six days after the bombing of
Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies, signing the
Instrument of Surrender on
2 September, officially ending World War II. The bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan's adopting
Three Non-Nuclear Principles, forbidding the nation from nuclear armament. The role of the bombings in
Japan's surrender and their ethical justification are still debated
...
Survival of some structures
Some of the reinforced concrete buildings in Hiroshima had been very strongly constructed because of the earthquake danger in Japan, and their framework did not collapse even though they were fairly close to the blast center. Eizo Nomura (野村 英三 Nomura Eizō?) was the closest known survivor, who was in the basement of a reinforced concrete building (it remained as the
Rest House after the war) only 170 m (560 ft) from ground zero (the hypocenter) at the time of the attack.
Akiko Takakura (高蔵 信子 Takakura Akiko?) was among the closest survivors to the hypocenter of the blast. She had been in the solidly built
Bank of Hiroshima only
300 meters (980 ft) from ground-zero at the time of the attack. Since the bomb detonated in the air, the blast was directed more downward than sideways, which was largely responsible for the survival of the
Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall, now commonly known as the
Genbaku, or
A-bomb Dome. This building was designed and built by the
Czech architect
Jan Letzel, and was only
150 m (490 ft) from ground zero. The ruin was named
Hiroshima Peace Memorial and was made a
UNESCO World Heritage site in
1996 over the objections of the United States and
China, which expressed reservations on the grounds that other
Asian nations were the ones who suffered the greatest loss of life and property, and a focus on Japan lacked historical perspective...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions
The energy released from a nuclear weapon detonated in the troposphere can be divided into four basic categories:
-
Blast—40-50% of total energy
-
Thermal radiation—30-50% of total energy
-
Ionizing radiation—5% of total energy (more in a neutron bomb)
-
Residual radiation—5-10% of total energy
...Locations such as submarine, surface, airburst, or exo-atmospheric determine how much energy is produced at blast and how much as radiation...