In an instant a brilliant flash of light cut the morning sky, followed by another, and in seconds the City of Hiroshima was in turmoil. Four months after the bombing, Hiroshima announced its population to be 151 693 — half of its people had been lost.

Almost 60 years to that fatal day, a delegation from Hiroshima touched down in South Africa, in the spirit of reconciliation, on the 'Hiroshima World Peace Mission', the 60th anniversary project. Their aim: to share the experience and spirit of peace and reconciliation with the rest of the world, in an attempt to educate about the evil power of nuclear weapons. It bears particular significance to South Africa in that it was the first of eight countries to commit itself unilaterally to the dismantling of its nuclear weapons programme.

Part of the delegation is Akiro Tashiro, Senior Staff Writer and Special Project Editor of a major Japanese newspaper based in Hiroshima, and Director of the Hiroshima World Peace Mission and International Cultural Foundation, Akira Tashiro. With him is Takashi Teramoto, he is a 'hibakusha', one of the very last remaining Hiroshima Atomic Bomb survivors. Now 69, he was just 10-years-old at the time of the bombing. This is his story:

The first US atomic bomb exploding on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 Pic: AFP

The year I want to erase
By: Takashi Teramoto

Return to Hiroshima from Group Evacuation
As the last stage of the Second World War, American bombers attacked major cities in Japan. In April 1945, elementary school children in Hiroshima were evacuated in a group to take precautions against air raids. As fifth grader of an elementary school, I was moved to a temple in a mountain village with my classmates. Because of homesickness and hunger, many tried to escape to go home. But, they were taken back soon. In such hard says I became sick. On August 4 my mother came to the evacuation site to take me to a home doctor in Hiroshima. The initial plan was to return to Hiroshima on August 6, but wanting to get home the same day. If we had gone home on the sixth, we would not have encountered the bombing. I still regret that. On the other hand I can't forget a peace of mind I felt sleeping besides my mother that night after a long separation.

In the morning of August 6, 1945
My house was one kilometre away from the hypocenter. In the morning of August 6, I was writing a letter to my friend in the evacuation site. Just then, there was a flash of light near the window to the backyard. I turned to look at it and instantly everything went dark. I had no idea what had happened, to I just crouched where I was. After a while, I saw a gentle light and walked in that direction. I arrived out on the street. A woman from our neighbourhood helped me. I looked all around but couldn’t see my mother. I started crying and screaming, “Where is Mother? She was with me in the house." Our neighbours told me: “Your mother will be rescued. You have to get out of here now.” So I went, on the back of the woman, with some others to a suburb. I was injured on my head and face and my face was covered with blood. So, no one could recognize my glance.

Flight to refuge
As we fled, I saw a woman buried to her neck in rubble with her eyes wide opened looking frantically here and there. The fire came so quickly. I have always assumed she burned to death. That scene still floats into my mind’s eye. I cannot forget it.
We stopped at a temporary relief station in Yokogawa. It was crowded with the badly injured. I got my head covered with a white cloth, but no medicine applied. I saw one of my friends. He had a serious burn and was walking with his arms in front of him. Something like tattered rags were hanging from his arms. When I looked closely, I found it was peeled skin. Later I heard he died a few days after I saw him. After sunset, my father came to a site. We stayed. He told me: “Your mother was saved and is at foot of Yokogawa bridge,” and I was a little relieved. The sky over Hiroshima was stained red. And I saw flames burning victims on the beach by the nearby river till late.

Mother's death
In few days, I arrived at my aunt’s house in Tsutsuga village. I was well taken care of there. One day, I found white small things were moving on a injury in my hand. My brother-in-law said: “Maggots bred in the injury. Your hand should be cleaned up now.” Because no suitable medicine was available, he washed my hand with salt water. As it was painful, I tried to escape but some persons hold me down and finished treatment. Over a week later, I heard that my old sister was coming with my mother. I was waiting for them, but only my sister appeared. I asked: “Where’s Mother?" All she did was bring out a small box and said: "She’s here.” Some years after that, I heard about my mother from my sister. My mother was rescued form where she was trapped under the house and was taken to a temporary relief station on a riverbank. She was unable to walk, so she stayed there. She grew weaker every day and passed away in the evening of August 15. Her body was lined up with seven or eight others, and they were all cremated together. My sister carried home some ashes and bones form near where her body had been lying. I also heard that the woman who carried me on her back and most of the neighbours who fled with us died within two or three months.

Between life and death
Toward the end of August, I woke up in the morning to find that my hair had come out and was lying flat on my pillow. My entire body ached. Every day I could do nothing but lie in the bed. I kept losing hair. I was truly wavering on the brink of death. In my half conscious state, I heard a soft voice near my pillow saying: “People who encountered the pica (atomic bomb) are suddenly losing hair, bleeding from their gums, getting purple spots on their bodies and dying one after another. Hopefully this child will live.” I wondered if they were talking about me, but I remember clear that I had no fear of death whatsoever. Around in November, pain in my body disappeared, and a injury had healed. But, I had not enough strength mentally and physically to go to school. I spent my time mostly in a bed. I returned to Hiroshima at the end of the year to live in Mitakicho. A long stretch of burned ruins of Hiroshima was seen through a window of my house.

Fifth grade, one more time
In April 1946, I went back to an elementary school as a fifth grader and studied for some time in an open-air classroom. Thought I took fifth grade twice, I was unable to erase that year, 1945. It still pains me great that I caused my mother to worry, then she suffered such a cruel death. Various thoughts and feeling have heavily burdened me for nearly 60 years.

No more Hiroshimas
After retirement, in 1998, I applied for a volunteer guide at the Hiroshima Peach Memorial Museum (A-bomb Museum), and in 2000, I joined an organisation of witnesses to convey the A-bomb experience. At the museum, sometimes I am asked: "Don’t you have grudge against USA?" With a clear memory that my mother was killed at the house we were together, I can't say: "I have nothing against them." But, I have stronger feeling of wish not to have my children and grandchildren experience the tragedy I have gone through. As a person who was exposed to the A-bomb, whose family and friends were killed, and who came back from the brink of death, I’d like to urge: "Victory can't be attained through retaliation. A chain of retaliation can’t create peace. Nuclear weapons would destroy human society."

Read more about the city of Hiroshima: The Chogoku Shimbum Eyewitness History The Chukogo Shimbum: Hiroshima's Day of requiem Damage done by atomic bombs A colonel's description of the A-Bomb being dropped