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The mushroom cloud rises above Nagasaki
The mushroom cloud rises above Nagasaki
The mushroom cloud rises above Nagasaki
The mushroom cloud rises above Nagasaki
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This painting was created by Ashitsuka Mura, who was 27 at the time of the bombing of Nagasaki. Mr. Ashitsuka witnessed the blast from Takashima-machi, an Island off of Nagasaki harbor. A gigantic atomic cloud climbed up into the sky over Nagasaki, at its base a sea of fire... the city of Nagasaki had vanished. Not too long after the devastating blast the sky was darkened with heavy storm clouds, and a terrible black rain began to fall. All of the radioactive ash, smoke, and particle waste of the vaporized city was carried into the atmosphere by the mushroom cloud - and it came back to earth in the form of large, radioactive black droplets that splashed across everything for miles around.

People who had no other exposure to the bomb blast other than the black rain began to die horrible lingering deaths. Their hair fell out and their gums would bleed. Open sores that would not heal appeared on their bodies... they could not hold down food... they grew weak and died. At the time the Japanese were mystified by what seemed to be a terrible plague, but they soon came to understand that they were victims of radiation sickness.