At At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, residents of Hiroshima saw a tremendous flash of light in the sky.
Soon after, a roaring rumble was heard and a huge mushroom-shaped cloud rose to a height of about 12 km above the Japanese city.
The Americans had dropped an atomic bomb with the power of about 16,000 tons of TNT on Hiroshima to force the Japanese surrender.
Studies have shown that about 9 out of 10 Japanese who were within a one kilometer radius of the place where the bomb went off were killed instantly.
The destruction of the bomb was still somewhat limited, because at a distance of 5 km there was a good chance that people would survive the explosion.
It is estimated that around 140,000 people out of a population of 350,000 died as a result of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
In the following years, many died from their wounds.
Many were crippled, and one year later scientists discovered the first human cancer. There were going to be a lot of them.
It is estimated that around 60,000 have died from radiation sickness in the coming decades.
