DEVELOPMENT-JAPAN: Atom Bomb Survivors Fight Old Age, Loneliness

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Aug 6 2000 (IPS) - Fifty-five years after the world’s first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan’s dwindling number of survivors are battling old age, loneliness, and an increasing feeling of rejection by society.

Toyoko Yoshino, a 76-year-old survivor from Hiroshima, is recovering from partial paralysis after suffering a blood clot in her brain 14 years ago. She says she has been feeling tired and helpless these past few years.

“I have reached my limit,” said the greying woman, who lives alone. “I am tired and dejected these days.”

Yoshino, who survived the atom bomb attack on Aug. 6, 1945 by American warplanes carrying out instructions to end the Pacific War, belongs to Hiroshima o Kataru Kai (Forum for Conversations about Hiroshima).

It is a voluntary group comprised of 14 survivors who, for the last 16 years since they formed the organisation, have been sharing their experiences with visitors to Hiroshima.

They lecture people about the horrors of nuclear warfare, relating their experiences on that day and their lives since then.

More than 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima, and a second bomb that hit Nagasaki three days later killed about 74,000 people.

Today, the government says there are 297,613 survivors of the atomic bombings, the first time the number has dropped below 300,000.

Last week, the Nagasaki Red Cross Atomic Bomb hospital released statistics showing it admitted a record 1,242 victims in Japan’s fiscal 1999, which ended in April.

A total of 29.3 percent were admitted for cancer and 12.6 percent for brain and heart disorders. Of the total number of atom bomb survivors admitted, 5,606 were new patients.

“We stress the message that life must be respected,” Yoshino said of the point that survivors make to those who listen to their stories. To this day, she continues to suffer from sleep problems because of the guilt she feels for the lies she had told dying children on the day of the atom bomb attack.

“The children were suffering from horrible burns and were crying out for their mothers, and I told them that their mothers would come soon. But I knew that would not happen as the they were dying like flies,” she said.

Despite the busy schedule of Hiroshima o Kataru Kaithe — the group has talked with more than 400,000 visitors — Yoshino says the organisation plans to disband in March due to financial difficulties and its members’ ill health.

Yoshino reports that four members have passed away since the group started, and that the average age of members has reached 74 years. She says it has been difficult to find the money to pay for transportation expenses to meet with visitors, which is why Hiroshima o Kataru Kaithe cannot carry on with its work.

But Seiko Ikeda, a 71-year-old housewife and executive vice president of the Hiroshima Council of (A-bomb) Victims Organisation, says the biggest letdown is the fact that Japan does not seem to have learned enough from the lessons of the atom bomb attacks.

“The biggest blow of all for us is that the Japanese government continues to support nuclear issues such as the expansion of the domestic nuclear industry, and continues to support the United States despite its nuclear arms proliferation,” explained Ikeda.

She says she became listless for several days in September, after news spread of an accident at a nuclear power plant in Japan. One worker died due to severe radiation, and several others were also exposed.

Ikeda was 12 when the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima, a day locals called ‘Pika-Don’, or Flash Bang.

On that day, she had been mobilised by the Japanese military to clean an old building 1.5 km from the epicentre of the atom bomb explosion — close enough for Ikeda to be burnt so badly that she was almost unrecognisable.

She had 15 surgical procedures done on her face, where her burnt skin hung “looked like dripping wax from a lighted candle”, Ikeda recalls.

“The mental and physical pain was excruciating. As a result I am wholly against nuclear weapons and war, which only inflicts suffering on people,” said Ikeda, who has traveled to the United States, India and Pakistan to lobby against nuclear weapons.

Her sentiment is shared by many survivors. In a June poll of 239 people aged between 54 and 91 years old, more than half of the survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb attacks said they did not expect nuclear weapons to be abolished in the 21st century.

“The United Nations should work to prevent the development of new and stronger weapons that can replace nuclear weapons in the next generation, but in reality it is unlikely to happen since the UN has failed to abolish current nuclear weapons,” a 71-year-old Nagasaki resident responded in the survey.

A 79-year-old man said that anti-nuclear activists are regarded as black sheep in Japan. An overwhelming 58 percent of respondents replied that it would be difficult to pass on their experiences to the younger generation.

Despite the dejection often felt by Japan’s ageing survivors, peace activists say they play an important role in the fight against nuclear weapons.

“Their first-hand testimony is a powerful tool for us activists especially when Japan is poised to enter a more active global role in the 21st century,” pointed out 25-year-old Rie Nakamura, who says she still weeps when she listens to the survivors’ stories.