Prompt and utter destruction: the Nagasaki disaster and the initial medical relief

Abstract

The article takes an overall look at the initial medical relief activities in Nagasaki after the atomic bomb fell there on 9 August 1945. In Nagasaki, as in Hiroshima, medical facilities were instantaneously destroyed by the explosion, yet the surviving doctors and other medical staff, though themselves sometimes seriously injured, did their best to help the victims. Medical facilities in adjacent areas also tended to the wounded continuously being brought there; some relief workers arrived at the disaster area when the level of radiation was still dangerously high. This article will in particular highlight the work of the doctors.