{"id":27608,"date":"2025-07-25T12:52:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T11:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/?p=27608"},"modified":"2025-08-08T12:53:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T11:53:46","slug":"then-the-city-started-to-burn-the-fires-were-chasing-me-80-years-on-hiroshima-survivors-describe-how-the-atomic-blast-echoed-down-generations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/then-the-city-started-to-burn-the-fires-were-chasing-me-80-years-on-hiroshima-survivors-describe-how-the-atomic-blast-echoed-down-generations\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Then the city started to burn, the fires were chasing me\u2019 \u2013 80 years on, Hiroshima survivors describe how the atomic blast echoed down generations"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>I\u2019m not sure if it was the effect of the atomic bomb, but I have always had a weak body, and when I was born, the doctor said I wouldn\u2019t last more than three days.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>These are the words of Kazumi Kuwahara, a third-generation\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/they-died-with-stones-in-their-mouths-hiroshimas-last-survivors-tell-their-stories-107468\"><em>hibakusha<\/em><\/a> \u2013 a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan 80 years ago, says <em>Elizabeth Chappell, Affiliated Researcher, The Open University.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Kuwahara, who still lives in Hiroshima, was in London on May 6 this year to give a speech at a Victory Over Japan Day conference organised and hosted by the University of Westminster. Now 29, she told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QvGH6lKrPmo\">the conference<\/a>\u00a0that she felt she had been \u201cfighting illness\u201d throughout her 20s. When she was 25, she needed abdominal surgery to remove a tumour which post-surgery tests showed was benign.<\/p>\n<p>When she found out about the operation, her grandmother, Emiko Yamanaka \u2013 now aged 91 and a direct survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima \u2013 told her: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, it\u2019s my fault.\u201d Kuwahara explained:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Ever since I was young, whenever I became seriously ill, my grandmother would repeatedly say: \u2018I\u2019m sorry.\u2019 The atomic bombing didn\u2019t end on that day and the survivors \u2013 we hibakusha \u2013 continue to live within its shadow.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/then-the-city-started-to-burn-the-fires-were-chasing-me-80-years-on-hiroshima-survivors-describe-how-the-atomic-blast-echoed-down-generations-260645\">Read the full article on The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Picture credit: Lana on Pexels<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m not sure if it was the effect of the atomic bomb, but I have always had a weak body, and when I was born, the doctor said I wouldn\u2019t last more than three days. These are the words of Kazumi Kuwahara, a third-generation\u00a0hibakusha \u2013 a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":27609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[860,1525,1643],"class_list":["post-27608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-social-sciences","tag-faculty-of-fass","tag-news-home","tag-ou-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27608"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27611,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27608\/revisions\/27611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}