"The city was hidden by that awful cloud . . . boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall."
-Colonel Paul Tibbets
The atomic bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy", was made to be destructive. However, the scientists who created it may have thought afterwards that the "Little Boy" might have been a little too destructive. The 9,700 pound uranium bomb detonated 1,900 feet above the city of Hiroshima, directly above the Japanese Second Army. The explosion was equal to that of one containing 15,000 tons of explosives.
People farther away from the explosion were the first victims of the bomb's blinding flash, a blast of heat, and a deafening boom. Building were taken out just as quickly as the people who lived in them. Almost every building within a mile of ground zero collapsed and fell to a pile of ruins. Less than 10% of the buildings in Hiroshima had emerged from the explosion unscathed. Most of the structures within three miles was extraordinarily damaged. Even houses up to twelve miles away suffered greatly from shattered glass. People who were inside buildngs during the attack thought that the structure they were in had been directly struck by the atomic weapon. The buildings often collapsed before the poor people living in them could escape. They would be forever held prisoners in what was left of their homes.
Buildings that were not demolished by the atomic blast were soon wiped out by the fires. Countless numbers of small fires suddenly appeared and took down anything in their path. They eventually merged into one enormous firestorm. The firestorm created unsafe winds that blew inward, toward the core of the fire. After a while, the firestorm consumed 4.4 square miles of Hiroshima, extinguishing and killing anything or anyone who had not evacuated in time.
"The city was hidden by that awful cloud . . . boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall."
-Colonel Paul Tibbets
The atomic bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy", was made to be destructive. However, the scientists who created it may have thought afterwards that the "Little Boy" might have been a little too destructive. The 9,700 pound uranium bomb detonated 1,900 feet above the city of Hiroshima, directly above the Japanese Second Army. The explosion was equal to that of one containing 15,000 tons of explosives.
People farther away from the explosion were the first victims of the bomb's blinding flash, a blast of heat, and a deafening boom. Building were taken out just as quickly as the people who lived in them. Almost every building within a mile of ground zero collapsed and fell to a pile of ruins. Less than 10% of the buildings in Hiroshima had emerged from the explosion unscathed. Most of the structures within three miles was extraordinarily damaged. Even houses up to twelve miles away suffered greatly from shattered glass. People who were inside buildngs during the attack thought that the structure they were in had been directly struck by the atomic weapon. The buildings often collapsed before the poor people living in them could escape. They would be forever held prisoners in what was left of their homes.
Buildings that were not demolished by the atomic blast were soon wiped out by the fires. Countless numbers of small fires suddenly appeared and took down anything in their path. They eventually merged into one enormous firestorm. The firestorm created unsafe winds that blew inward, toward the core of the fire. After a while, the firestorm consumed 4.4 square miles of Hiroshima, extinguishing and killing anything or anyone who had not evacuated in time.