69 Years Ago: Many A-Bomb Survivors Afflicted With Mysterious Disease

This is an original United Press dispatch from 1945 below.    Of course the strange and new disease turned out to be radiation sickness and tens of thousands more died.  This was pooh-poohed or covered up by American officials and the media, along with historic film footage.  See my book Atomic Cover-up.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 23 (UP)— Japanese broadcasts today said atomic bomb raids on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagaski had cost nearly half a million "casualties and sufferers" from leveled buildings within a radius up to 10 miles.

Radio Tokyo, in broadcasts recorded by United Press, said effects of the bomb were "monstrous."

The second atomic bomb dropped August 9 on Nagasaki took a toll of "more than 10,000 persons killed, more than 20,000 wounded and more than 90,000 rendered homeless in the city," Tokyo said."

"Furthermore many persons are dying daily from burns sustained during the course of the raids," a Tokyo propaganda broadcast said.

More than 60,000 were killed in Hiroshima August 6, Tokyo said, and "the number of dead are mounting as many of those who received burns cannot survive their wounds because of the effects the atomic bomb produce on the human body.

"Even those who. received minor burns," one broadcast asserted, "looked quite healthy at first, only to weaken after a few days for some unknown reason and frequently die." Since the explosion of the atomic bomb affected an area 30 kilometers in diameter and practically all houses in this area were either blown up, knocked down or reduced by fire, it is difficult to count all the dead bodies, many of which burned under collapsed buildings.

One hundred thousand were wounded and .200,000 "rendered homeless" at Hiroshima, where the world's first atomic bomb dropped in a parachute cradle to explode .a terrific whirlpool of energy whose immediate effects were felt for 10 minutes.