First-hand accounts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Gizmodo has a collection of incredibly powerful interviews with survivors of the American nuclear bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More than survivors, these people are witnesses, describing the sights, sounds and smells of a nuclear attack. Akiko Takakura was 20, and only 300 feet from the hypocenter where the Little Boy bomb exploded over Hiroshima.

..It was like a white magnesium flash. I lost consciousness right after or almost at the same time I saw the flash. When I regained consciousness, I found myself in the dark. I heard my friends, Ms. Asami, crying for her mother.

Since Hiroshima was completely enveloped in flames, we felt terribly hot and could not breathe well at all. After a while, a whirlpool of fire approached us from the south. It was like a big tornado of fire spreading over the full width of the street. Whenever the fire touched, wherever the fire touched, it burned. It burned my ear and leg, I didn't realize that I had burned myself at that moment, but I noticed it later.

Sent in by b-c-e, via Submitterator

Gizmodo: This is how it feels to be under a nuclear attack