Hiroshima was transformed from a dull backwater city into a momentary vision of Hell
After the bomb went off, Hiroshima was transformed from a dull backwater city into a momentary vision of Hell. Among the horrors witnessed by survivors were the ‘ant-walking alligators’—creatures of the blast that seemed neither human nor animal, neither living nor dead. When the ‘Little Boy’ exploded 750 yards above Hiroshima during the Monday morning rush hour, no-one had ever seen anything like it. A great light filled the sky, a sound that could flatten buildings rolled across the city and 80,000 people died instantly. The statistics are rightly famous: up to 40% of the population dead, two thirds of the city destroyed and fires burning at 4,000C. But the experience of survivors in the immediate aftermath is less well-known, and far more disturbing. In his book, Last Train to Hiroshima, Charles Pellegrino combed through thousands of eyewitness statements. Among the horrors of radiation poisoning and the initial firestorm, he uncovered one ‘creature’ unique to the atomic wasteland: ...