TERRIBLE EFFECT OF ATOMIC BOMB

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 199, 23 August 1945, Page 5

TERRIBLE EFFECT OF ATOMIC BOMB

High Jap Casualties

Rec. noon. NEW YORK, August 22. The atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed or injured 280,000 people and left 200,000 homeless, according to Tokyo radio. Many more victims of the attacks are dying daily from burns.

Sixty thousand were killed in Hiroshima, where the bomb hit the central part of the city during working hours. The number of dead is mounting. Many who were burned cannot survive because of the uncanny effects which the bomb produces in the human body. Even those slightly burned appeared quite healthy at first, but weakened after a few days from some unknown reason and frequently died.

The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima affected an area 30 kilometres in diameter, in which practically all the houses were either blown up, knocked down or burned down. Hence it is difficult to count all the bodies, many of which are buried under collapsed buildings. The sight of the wounded women and children defies description.

The Japanese Defence Headquarters technician, Sutezo Torii, reporting on the Hiroshima bomb, saicl that, unlike an ordinary bomb, it apparently continues to build up increased pressure after the first impact. People who witnessed the monstrous spectacle said they saw ripples circulate from the explosion. A black shower, apparently some form of liquid, rained for from five to ten minutes after the explosion, staining clothes.

The Japanese reported to have died mysteriously a few days after the atomic blasts most likely suffered from the effects of a concentrated stream of neutrons, says the Associated Press science editor. Such rays have been produced at the University of Cali*. fornia and applied to animals, which died in a few days because the rays destroyed a lot of the white blood corpuscles.

Neutron rays from the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were mostly in the air. It is also likely that the neutrons streaming from the bomb flash struck particles of earth and caused them to emit their own streams. The neutrons would become temporarily injurious.

The outstanding fact about all these rays, however, is the ease with which the air and earth disperse them to the point of harmlessness.