Video: How many people were killed by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
By Erik English | August 5, 2024
Nagasaki in November 1945. (US Army Air Forces via japanairraids.org)
The only instances of atomic weapons being used against a civilian population occurred in 1945 at the tail end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, “Little Boy” was detonated above the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, “Fat Man” was detonated above Nagasaki. The aftermath of the bombings was the complete devastation of both cities in which countless numbers of people lost their lives.
In 2020, nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein published original research with the Bulletin, describing the challenges of tabulating the casualties of the bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Without accurate records of the population prior to the bombings, Allied forces and the Japanese government relied on proxy figures to come up with their estimates. Decades later, those estimates were revisited to account for information that was excluded at the time. The result is a recognition that we may never be able to fully account for the devastation of one of the world’s deadliest weapons.
Learn more in the Bulletin’s latest video and read more in Alex Wellerstein’s original piece for the Bulletin, Counting the dead at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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Keywords: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, WWII, nuclear weapons
Topics: Multimedia, Nuclear Risk
Erik English
Erik English is an associate multimedia editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He has worked at the International Atomic Energy... Read More
A better question would be, “How many American lives were saved by the dropping of these two bombs by not having to send in Allied troops onto the Japanese mainland where a long, protracted, and very bloody war would have continued”? We cannot lose sight of the fact that Japan instigated this Pacific war, and therefore Japanese civilian blood is on the emperor’s hands, not the hands of President Truman.
A more pertinent question would be How many lives have been lost, in the US and throughout the world, as a result of nuclear weapons? The number of people who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki pales in comparison to those who have suffered and died while mining of uranium (in America, Yellow Cake Miners); as a result of nuclear tests (in America, Downwinders and Atomic Vets); and as a result of hazardous waste storage — in American cities like St. Louis, Missouri.
Your premise is false and simply your assumption. I do not defend the nuclear industry as I know he they poisoned us knowingly even resulting in terrible deaths in some cases as well as debilitating conditions to different degrees. But those numbers are known and people damages are compensated by an act of Congress. Well compensated. I am myself a Cold War Warrior enriching ursnuoim for a brief period before developing new plastics that took me into both Russia and China, and my five business ventures to Japan got me to even Hiroshima for a day where Japanese people were… Read more »