The threat continues to this day fueled by a new nuclear arms race initiated by the United States proposal to spend upwards of $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years to rebuild our entire nuclear arsenal
By Robert Dodge / Common Dreams
This week marks 73 years since the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, ultimately resulting in the deaths of more than 200,000 people. With the dawn of the nuclear age, the term “hibakusha” formally entered our lexicon. Atomic bomb survivors are referred to in Japanese as hibakusha, which translates literally as “bomb-affected-people”. The bombings and aftermath changed the world forever and threaten the very future of mankind to this day.
According to the Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law, there are three hibakusha categories. These include people exposed directly to the bomb and its immediate aftermath, those people exposed within a 2 kilometer radius who entered the sphere of destruction within two weeks of the explosion and people exposed to radioactive fallout generally from assisting victims and handling bodies, and those exposed in utero, whose mothers were pregnant and belonging to any of these defined categories.
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