Atomic Bomb Dropped on Nagasaki

On August 9, 1945, at 11:02 AM local time, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan-three days after the bombing of Hiroshima.^¹ The weapon, codenamed "Fat Man," detonated approximately 1,650 feet above the city's Urakami district.^¹ The blast was roughly equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT, destroying an estimated 2.6 square miles of the city and killing approximately 70,000 people immediately, with total deaths reaching around 140,000 by the end of 1945 when accounting for radiation sickness and injuries.^¹

Nagasaki had been selected as a secondary target because of poor visibility over the primary objective, Kokura.^¹ As the B-29 bomber Bockscar approached under cloudy conditions, the crew spotted a break in the clouds over Nagasaki and released the bomb.^¹ The geography of Nagasaki-nestled in a valley surrounded by hills-meant the blast effects were somewhat contained compared to the flatter terrain of Hiroshima, but the destruction was still catastrophic.^¹ The thermal radiation ignited fires across the city, and the blast wave flattened buildings up to 1.2 miles from ground zero.^¹

Japan announced its surrender on August 15, 1945, just six days after Nagasaki was bombed.^¹ Emperor Hirohito cited "a new and most cruel bomb" in his radio address to the nation.^¹ The decision to use atomic weapons remains historically contentious-proponents argued it hastened Japan's surrender and avoided a costly mainland invasion, while critics contend Japan was already on the verge of collapse and the bombs' use on civilian populations was unjustifiable.^¹ The vast majority of those killed at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilians.^¹

The survivors of the atomic bombings, known as hibakusha, faced decades of physical and psychological trauma.^¹ Many suffered from radiation sickness, cancer, and keloid scarring.^¹ Beyond the immediate human toll, the bombings fundamentally altered global politics, initiating the nuclear age and the Cold War arms race.^¹ The events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated the destructive potential of nuclear weapons and became the only combat use of atomic bombs in human history-a distinction that has endured for nearly 80 years.^¹