Nagasaki Medical School
I would have to learn more about the atomic holocaust from the doctors at the Nagasaki University Medical School, the oldest medical school in Japan and one of the most respected. The genial Dr. Rasisuke Shirabe, Director of the Hospital and Professor of Surgery, guided me through the ruins of his hospital and pointed out through a window, that 800 metres toward the mid-valley below was the hypocentre. He then pointed to a medical school and laboratories of wooden framed buildings that were instantly ignited and crushed, killing all of the students and faculty inside, among them his son.
"Initially there was a sound of a diving plane followed by a bright light like a magnesium flare, followed by a thunderous roar as the building shuddered and the ceiling and walls crashed around me and then a blast shook the room, the walls and ceiling buried me and then complete darkness prevailed, later to learn it was caused by the dense dust cloud, stirred by the blast that covered the city and eclipsed the sun when the explosive force stirred the earth's surface."
Shirabe related that some of the deaths were caused by falling beams. Those outside were burned and died instantly on the spot. As the thermal radiation and the penetrating nuclear adication travel at the same speed as light, these individuals also received a large dose of radiation. Many died of radiation illness without any signs of trauma or thermal radiation burns.
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