84-year-old Nagasaki hibakusha shares memories and warns that nuclear lessons are forgotten
Mitoe Matsumoto, now 84, survived the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing as a three-year-old and recounted her experience in an interview at the city's Atomic Bomb Museum, stressing that humanity has not learned the weapon’s true dangers.
On August 9, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Bockscar dropped the plutonium bomb Fat Man over Nagasaki’s Urakami valley, where three-year-old Mitoe Matsumoto was living with her family. She recalled a blinding flash, the roar of the explosion, and her mother’s frantic effort to protect her, while her father was thrown by the blast but escaped injury. The devastation claimed her father’s workplace and later led to the death of a sister-in-law from radiation sickness.
Matsumoto explained that hibakusha often endured social stigma, particularly when seeking marriage, though her own neighborhood consisted solely of survivors. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare supplies hibakusha with free medical care, a modest monthly subsidy and a funeral allowance, while the peace group Nihon Hidankyo, honored with a Nobel Peace Prize, works to keep their memories alive. Married to another survivor and without children, Matsumoto now devotes her remaining years to educating school groups and youth groups, aware that the pool of eyewitnesses is rapidly shrinking and that the average survivor is now in their mid-80s.
Why it matters
Firsthand accounts highlight the lasting human impact of nuclear weapons and the need for continued awareness.
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