The People Who Survived Both The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombings
The fact that Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived two atomic bombings was quite extraordinary. As things turned out, however, while what had happened to him was rare, it was not unique. Incredibly, there were hundreds of people who were atomically bombed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although up to 200,000 people perished in the nuclear explosions and in their aftermaths, at least 200 survivors of the Hiroshima explosion had sought refuge in Nagasaki, only to face the same fate again, just a few days later.
A documentary called Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was screened at the United Nations in 2006. Producers had tracked down 165 individuals who had been in Hiroshima when that city had been nuked, then ended up in Nagasaki when that city experienced the same fate three days later. The Japanese, who coined the term hibakusha (“atomic bombed”) to describe to the survivors of the atomic bombings, refer to double survivors as the nijyuu hibakusha (“double atomic bombed”).
