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How are nuclear explosions: eyewitness memories

Nuclear explosion - it's awful, but to understand how it is awful, you can only listen to the witnesses, who miraculously survived.
Before you - a translation of an article by Robert Evans, one of the authors of the blog Cracked.
Pop Culture officially obsessed with a nuclear bomb, "Terminator 2", "Road", "Doctor Streydzhlav" and so. On. But what it looks like, and how to actually live those who survived the nuclear bombardment? We talked with Shigeko Sasamori, a resident of Hiroshima. She was only 13 years old when the first nuclear bomb was dropped on the city. And she managed to survive.
Here it was possible to find out ...





1. There was absolutely no warning

To equalize the city to the ground by conventional bombs, requires a lot of airplanes. Not notice them will be difficult, because the sky is filled with the roar of the engines. We can assume that this point will serve as a warning before the world explodes around you. Anyway, that's how it worked before. Shigeko Hirosimekakim home in some way managed to avoid the bombing until 1945, however, and her and her neighbors have repeatedly warned that this can happen at any time:
"They were expecting an air raid, but the Enola Gay flew accompanied by only two planes. Have you ever seen the three aircraft are going to attack? What this could be the point? The day was very hot, beautiful blue sky. No clouds. I saw a silver plane, behind which was a long white tail. It looked cute. I told my classmates: "Look, look there!" I was a 13-year-old girl, and had never seen a nuclear bomb. I looked up and point the finger, and before I put my hand ... I saw the plane dropped some white thing ».
Then she described something similar to the "strong wind", but adds that the word "wind" can not properly describe the power of a nuclear explosion. Nuclear explosions occur rapidly, and if you find yourself next to one of them, you'll be killed before you have a chance to see the famous mushroom cloud. The majority of people who died as a result of a nuclear explosion, the blood from the brain to evaporate before they realized that there was an explosion.
The Japanese government was shocked also occurred as the victim on the ground. Electromagnetic pulse knocked out all communications with Hiroshima, and was seen as a massive air attack on any city in the government suggested that there is some strange technical problem. Of course, rumors of monstrous explosion began to appear, but they assumed that all of this - just a wild exaggeration. And in truth, a bomb capable bulldoze the whole city was to them at that time something like science fiction, and so it was up until someone does not find out what really happened.



2. The victims had no idea what happened

The world's first nuclear bombing occurred just when Shigeko pointing finger at Enola Gay.
"That's why my hand is still burnt today».
This is one of the rare interviews on Cracked, which was conducted in person. We pretended real journalists. After the explosion took place more than 60 years, but on the hand Shigeko is still possible to see traces of radiation burns. It looks as if someone had polished the lower half of her hands.
She remembers waking up:
"I saw people who were moving very slowly. Most of them were in the blood, clothes hung down in shreds. They looked red, exhausted and very scary. Then I came up with, "Oh, it's incendiary bomb exploded nearby. That's what I thought "».
In our time, we would have the luxury of knowing that for flash frying the whole city. Our first thought would be "nuclear explosion". But then, outside the White House and Los Alamos, no one knew that already exists such a thing as a fully functional nuclear bomb.



3. Such a trivial thing as extra clothing, can save from death

August 5, the night before the bombing, Shigeko awake because howling air raid sirens. Before heading to the shelter, she put on her best clothes - it was her way to save the most good things, if it turns out that the house burned down.
"The aircraft flew many times but did not bomb. So of course, since I was 13, and I went back to sleep and woke up still in good clothes ».
Teens have teenagers, it does not depend on the time period of the nation, and from raging whether the world's biggest bloody conflict or not. Shigeko woke up late and instead take off outfit, with the remainder of the night, she decided to just put on a new pair of trousers over those that were already on it:
"... And that is the reason why I survived. I have not burned completely. When the mother brought me home, his legs did not hurt. But the upper body burned ».
The upper part of the body was badly burned Shigeko, clothing that was there, literally blew, and the skin was scorched by heat radiation blast. But the second pants remained intact, and protect the skin. Get 50% of the body covered with radiation burns, it's terrible. Still, it's much better than getting a body burnt at 100%.



4. In the event of a nuclear explosion beware ... drown?

Shigeko ran in a relatively safe school class nearby. She still thought that the city dropped some incendiary bomb. The fact that people around were dead from falling off the charred skin, just not challenged this assumption. Other survivors after an explosion injured described as "living pieces of coal».
Shigeko, like most Japanese children, was trained in the bombing case to follow the adults. She was wounded, and probably was still in shock, but nevertheless slowly dragged to the first tall man whom she saw. Victims followed each other, forming a mass of bloody, burnt radiation zombies that were staggering and almost blindly seek shelter:
"I was injured, but ... I do not know. I do not feel - no pain, nothing. I just looked and thought: "Wow, all injured." I could not move quickly, there's no one could move fast. And I was lower than most, so I could not see beyond them. People outside burned much stronger. Their skin was hanging down in shreds. I was not far from the river. So I followed the people who went to the river. I saw a lot of people sliding into the river. I could not enter into it, because many were already in the water. Which of these men were dead, some alive - I can not say. People were so many that I could not see the water ».
People are not capable of independent thought, when 80% of their bodies covered with radiation burns. They have a tendency to follow the man in front of him, and for the thousands of survivors that meant going straight into the river. People are bombarded were not athletes. And their number skills hardly within sport diving. And this is the reason that many casualties of the first nuclear bombing simply drowned.



5. Environment gone mad

Nuclear bombing - a nightmare for the climate. This is much worse than your coughing smoke Ford 94-year issue. Immediately after the explosion, sunny day Shigeko turned in an average morning in Seattle:
"Then I sit down, and everything is black as pitch. See No Evil, Hear No Evil. I feel nothing. Soon there was a heavy fog, and began to clear. But it was still dark ».
She describes a side effect of a nuclear bomb, known as "black rain" when the force of the explosion creates a short half an hour later, a radioactive storm front. The sudden burst of strong temperature causes a downpour, which is mixed with radioactive materials, found themselves in the atmosphere and falls to the ground sticky, black water. Strange that pop culture is missing in this part of the descriptions of nuclear explosions, right? We used to think that nuclear explosions - a guarantee of high box office. However buckets of venom pouring from the sky, it's not very cool.



6. Dead froze in place

Nuclear explosion in an instant destroy all life in the county. Shigeko Dad was a fisherman. And he had the opportunity to try to hide in the fridge when he saw the bomber. Yes, that's right: the most stupid scene in the movie "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" was historically accurate.
"He heard the plane, and as soon as he saw him, he cried the old man," Bomb, run! " At the same time he ran into a huge building next door ... it struck him, and he found a huge cement freezer, and hid inside. He was not badly hurt ».
But those fishermen that he tried to warn, were not so lucky.
"When he left, the three or four people were still in the same position, and their bodies were completely pink. When human skin comes off, and the blood boils in the body, the body looks pink, not red. "



7. No treatment was

Institutions such as hospitals, usually located in central areas of cities. 90% of health workers in Hiroshima were killed or seriously injured in the moment when the bomb exploded in the city center. Shigeko spent five days in the same classroom, and she did not have such luxuries as food or water. She survived because she was probably the immune system of a Japanese teenage Wolverine (yes, we saw it). After five days before her mother heard rumors that her daughter is alive, wounded, and is in the classroom. Finally, Shigeko was saved. But she did not get to the hospital because of the hospital at that time there were only good memories. Fortunately, her house was one of the few buildings in the city that were not destroyed:
"When I was home, I was unconscious. I was lying under a mosquito net, and the father and mother took turns taking care of me. When I asked how I look, the mother said: "My father cut your hair." My head is not too burned, because the hair to protect it. Half of my forehead, too, do not hit hard ».
"So when he cut off all his hair, he had to remove the All Blacks (blisters). And he saw a very thick yellow pus. Infection. Five days without treatment, five very hot days. Many people died in this way. No water, no food. Five days ».

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