As World War II dragged on in the summer of 1945, the US deployed a new untested weapon to force Japan to surrender. On August 6 a B29 bomber dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It exploded at 8:15am and tens of thousands of people were killed instantly by the blast. The death toll rose to around 200,000 over the following years as the after effects of the radiation took hold. Peace Memorial Park was built in the 1950s in an area close to the epicenter of the blast. The park consists of many monuments, a museum, flame of peace and a peace bell. The wreckage of the Industrial Promotion Hall, now known as the Atomic Bomb Dome, is the only remnant from the destruction.
This monument, the Children's Peace Monument was erected by the classmates of Sadako Sasaki, a girl who was exposed to the bomb at age 2 and died of leukemia ten years later. It was built to mourn all the children who died. Sadako tried to fold 1,000 origami paper cranes so she could be granted her wish to live. Today people from all over the world fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako's monument.
This monument the Cenotaph is for the victims of the bomb. It contains the names of all who died.
We visited the Peace Memorial Museum which graphically explains the effects of the bomb through photos, videos, models and artifacts.
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