How many people instantly died

The BBC is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced. Home Explore the BBC. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. He later recalled the cloud caused by the atomic blast in Martin Gilbert's Second World War : 'Obscene in its greedy clawing at the earth, swelling as if with its regurgitation of all the life that it had consumed.

Explore the archive. Explore the BBC. Contact Us. The extensive destruction of civil installations hospitals, fire and police department, and government agencies the state of utter confusion immediately following the explosion, as well as the uncertainty regarding the actual population before the bombing, contribute to the difficulty of making estimates of casualties.

The Japanese periodic censuses are not complete. Finally, the great fires that raged in each city totally consumed many bodies. The number of total casualties has been estimated at various times since the bombings with wide discrepancies. This group unanimously declared that there was no guarantee that demonstrating the bombs to the Japanese in a deserted area would convince Japanese leaders to surrender. It was vital that Japan be convinced to surrender as fast as possible because the United States had just two atomic bombs available in July and additional weapons would not be ready to deploy for several more weeks.

Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese, American, and Japanese soldiers continued to die each day the war continued. Consequently, Truman approved the long-standing plans for the US Army Air Force to drop atomic bombs on a list of preselected Japanese cities.

The list of targets excluded Tokyo and Kyoto because of their political and historic importance. Instead, the intended target of the first bomb was Hiroshima, a fan-shaped city of approximately , people that occupied the estuary of the Ota River. The city was also home to the headquarters of the Japanese army that defended the island of Kyushu as well as a number of war industries. At a. As a result, the overloaded Enola Gay used more than two miles of runway to get aloft.

US Army Air Force photo. Meanwhile, in Hiroshima, Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto awoke at 5 a. Hiroshima time, which was an hour behind Tinian time. Tanimoto remained in the city to remove the transportable objects in his church to the safety of a suburban estate.

He had slept poorly because of several air raid warnings the previous night. Hiroshima had not yet endured an American bombing raid, but its good fortune was not expected to last. That morning, Tanimoto had agreed to help a friend move a large armoire filled with clothes out to the suburbs. The real mortality of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known. The destruction and overwhelming chaos made orderly counting impossible.

It is not unlikely that the estimates of killed and wounded in Hiroshima , and Nagasaki 75, are over conservative. At no time during the period between and were facilities allotted, or time provided, for the Medical Section of the Manhattan Engineer District to prepare a comprehensive history of its activities.

Regulations forbade notetaking.