DEATHS MOUNT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21801, 25 August 1945, Page 5

DEATHS MOUNT

ATOM BOMB BURNS 60,000 IN HIROSHIMA ULTRA-VIOLET EFFECTS VICTIMS’ BLOOD THINNED (11 a.m.) NEW YORK, Aug. 24. The Tokio radio says that a fortnight after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, radio-activity effects increased the deaths from the original 30,000 to 60,000. The majority of the injured persons received ultra-violet ray burns. Those within a radius of 1J miles of the explosion were burnt two or three times and others two miles distant had their skin turned bright red. Blisters formed after two hours, resulting in dropsy. Although abundant medical supplies were brought to the area, the deaths continued to mount. Reconstruction workers are suffering from various sicknesses. An examination of 10 servicemen who were burnt while recuperating a week after the bombing revealed that they possessed only 3150 white corpuscles. Twenty-three others who escaped with burns and were apparently healthy possessed only 3800 corpuscles compared with 7000 to 8000 for normal persons. The burnt servicemen had 3,065,000 red corpuscles and others 3,094,000 instead of the normal 4,500.000 to 5.000,000. “This shows that no person can completely recover from the injuries he received from the atomic bomb,” added the radio.