August 6 — International Physicians for Peace Day

Abstract

73 years ago, on the morning of August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The American bomber had the sonorous name "Enola Gay" - it was named after the mother of the crew commander, and the deadly bomb with the affectionate name "Little Boy" contained 20 thousand tons of TNT equivalent. In a few seconds, the "Little Boy" claimed about 130 thousand human lives, most of which turned into radioactive dust, and tens of thousands of people were dishoused. Three days later, on August 9, the city of Nagasaki was subjected to a similar strike using a bomb with no less peaceful name "Fat Man", with equally terrible consequences [3]. According to some reports, the Americans, in order to achieve complete surrender of Japan, planned to carry out a total of three nuclear strikes, but as of early August 1945, the US military had only two deadly bombs at their disposal. At that time, few could have imagined how terrible and irreversible the consequences of a nuclear strike could be. The incidence of leukemia increased 18 times. The victims of this terrible bombardment continue to die from radiation sickness to this day, annually replenishing the list of victims by 5,000 names [1]. To date, the number of victims of the tragedy has approached 450 thousand. The US Air Force colonel, who gave the order to drop the bomb from an escort aircraft, soon went mad, and spent the rest of his days in a psychiatric hospital.