V: Destruction
In the civic and business center nearest the explosion, the few concrete buildings that still stood were gutted. Fire soon swallowed all that was left of wooden structures. Ashes fell like powdery snow. Those people who manage to escape alive, forgetting everything but their own terror me the fire, leaped into Motoyasu River. Many drowned immediately. Others, barely reaching the banks, died there. Still others weakened and perished in the shallows. The surface of the river was so thronged with corpses that little water could be seen.
Some people escaped across burning bridges. One group fled with their ears ringing with the cries for help of people pinned under wreckage. There was no time to save anyone, even those who fell beside them as they ran Nor did they know where safety lay, but coming to the Prefectural High School, they jumped into the swimming pool. No sooner did they think themselves safe, however, than seeing flames billowing around them and a whirlwind throwing trees and light poles into the air, they sank under the water. Most of them were drowned. Hiroaki Yoshimura has described this incident.
On the morning of the seventh, Tomio Shibata from Eta Island found a mother lying face upward on the ground about half a mile from hypocenter. Her abdomen was ripped open and the contents lay scattered around her including her unborn child. Then, in the shade of a building Shibata came upon several hundred bodies, red as boiled octopus, piled higher than his head. He supposed they had been thrown there by the tremendous shock wave.
There are no exact figures to give the measure of the destruction in 26 of the 29 small sections that made up the central business ward, for there are no survivors to tell what happened. For the remaining three, however, estimates of death and damage are as follows:
| Houses Totally Destroyed | Houses Half Destroyed | Instantly Killed | Injured | Non-Injured | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kokutaijicho | 70% | 30% | 40% | 55% | 5% |
| Zakoba | 60% | 40% | 50% | 50% | 0 |
| Komachi | Unknown | Unknown | 45% | 50% | 5% |
Onaga
Onaga, a historical area lying 1.25 to 2.3 miles from hypocenter, comprised 2,365 households, about 9,252 people. Everyone there felt sure a bomb had fallen in his immediate vicinity and it was some time before people realized this was a far more critical situation. Almost no houses here fell, but the shock wave took off all the roofs and left the houses leaning toward the east. Windows, inner doors and screens were completely demolished. Immediately after the flash a yellow fog obscured everything and all vegetation shriveled with a crackling sound.
As the fog thins, it reveals an unbelievable scene of bloodshed. Faces, arms and legs are slashed by glass. Bodies are blood-covered, burned, blackened by flying soot and beginning to swell. Here, a woman carrying her baby on her back suddenly realizes it is dead and screams herself into insanity. There, people are crying, "Water, water !" and falling to the ground. Some moan, "Won't anybody treat my wounds ?"
Into this shambles stagger many residents who had volunteered for fire-break clearance, now so altered as to be unrecognizable. More and more refugees from the flaming center begin to crowd the streets, and soon there is a long, unbroken parade of ghastly figures stumbling along. Now one falls by the wayside, now another and another. Successively throughout the day, and all the way up over Ouchigo Pass, they continue to die.
Koi
Koi Ward lies some 1.3 to 3.3 miles from er Since it is largely foothills, rather than planning for its our evacuation in time of emergency, the ward had prepared to accept evacuees from the city. Of the 7,947 residents only 3.2% were instantly killed, 1.2% injured; 10% of the houses were burned or destroyed and 40% half destroyed Including refugees, however, the ward had to deal with no less than 3,000 dead.
Mrs. Ayako Abe writes of her experience. "I came down the hill in search of my eldest son, and had to cover my eyes from the hideous scene. The people from Fukushima Cho area coming to the evacuation center at Koi Elementary School wore not a shred of clothing — a naked parade with singed hair and enflamed flesh hanging down here and there. Two men carrying a wounded friend on a board suddenly dropped their burden and fell to the ground. Because I was wearing working trousers, and everyone else was naked, I felt ashamed.
"Minutes after the bomb I had been clinging to the persimmon tree in my garden and looking toward my house. There, among the shattered glass, fallen tiles and flooring thrown every which way, I saw my mother-in-law standing barefooted, frozen with fear, blood running down her face. Just then my seven-year-old daughter, dressed only in her slip, clutched at her, crying, 'Grandma, Grandma !' The dazed woman, dashing away her grandchild's hand, staggered into the bomb shelter.
"This took only five or ten seconds, but I can never forget the incident. First anger, then sorrow and finally despair overcame me. For many years I was tormented by distrust of people, and could not be civil to my mother in-law. Then I came to realize that it had happened in the midst of war, and my hate turned against war itself."
Ujina
At Ujina, lying 1.5 to 3.5 miles from the center, the appallingly pitiful refugees began to gather about an hour after the burst. All of the military buildings such as barracks, classrooms and warehouses were soon filled with the injured and those coming later had to be turned away. Soon a ferry service was set up and plied repeatedly between Ujina and the islands of Ninoshima and Kanawashima. The soldiers helping with this rescue work describe what they saw as they sat awaiting orders: "People with mouths wide open as though about to scream; a woman with a fixed, cataleptic stare; dark red flesh bulging out of skin split by heat as though a knife had slashed open a pomegranate ... Truckloads of victims were unloaded, and fell immediately to the ground. The groans that arose from all sides seemed to pull us into our graves. As time passed, the victims died, how very many no one knows, but as though competing, each to be first."
Since Ujina suffered less damage than other wards, the local authorities were able to exercise some control. Therefore this ward was active in rescue and clearance work, and with the harbor as center played an important role in the eventual restoration of Hiroshima.