‘It felt like hundreds of needles stabbing me,’ Hiroshima survivor recounts

Nearly 80 years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a survivor, Yoshito Matsushige has recounted his feeling of the attack that morning.

“I was bare from the waist up, and the blast was so intense—it felt like hundreds of needles were stabbing me all at once.”

It was 8:14 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when the world’s first atomic bomb detonated over the Japanese city. The sky turned a blinding white, followed by a force that incinerated over 70,000 people instantly and left Hiroshima in ruins.

Yoshito, who was 32 years old and nearly two miles from ground zero, somehow survived. A photojournalist at the time, he would go on to capture the only known images from the immediate aftermath—haunting photographs now etched into history.

He recalled crawling from under the rubble, retrieving his camera and military-issued clothing, and heading toward Miyuki Bridge, where the true horror of the blast unfolded before him.

Yoshito, who was nearly two miles from the blast’s epicentre, somehow survived. He would go on to take the only known photographs capturing the immediate aftermath. “I pulled my camera and the clothes issued by the military headquarters out from under the mound of debris, and I got dressed,” he said.

As he made his way toward Miyuki Bridge, the scenes grew more horrific. “I encountered schoolgirls with blisters the size of balls covering their backs, faces, shoulders, and arms. Their skin was hanging down like rugs.”

Some had lost their shoes and fled barefoot through fire. “They had burns on the soles of their feet,” Yoshito said. “Their pain was unimaginable.”

About 70,000 people were killed instantly. By the end of the year, that number had doubled due to radiation and injuries.

Fujio Torikoshi, another survivor, was just over a mile from ground zero. “I saw a black dot in the sky. Then it burst into a ball of blinding light.

A gust of hot wind hit my face. I closed my eyes and knelt, but another gust lifted me and slammed me into something hard,” he said. “When I woke up, my skin was burning. I tried to dunk myself in water, but it only made things worse.”

On August 9, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Shigek Matsumoto, 11 at the time, remembered victims arriving with their skin “peeled off their faces and bodies, hanging like ribbons.” Their hair was scorched to a few centimetres.

Kayano Nagai, who was only four, recalled the sound of cicadas. “The atom bomb was the last thing that happened in the war, and no more bad things have happened since then,” she said. “But I don’t have my Mummy anymore.”

In total, 250,000 people died from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Nearly 100,000 survivors are still alive today, many elderly, carrying the trauma in their bodies and memories.

Florian Eblenkamp, advocacy officer with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), says their testimonies must not be ignored.

“It’s more important than ever that we listen to the remaining survivors,” he said. “Their message is clear: these weapons must be abolished. They kill across generations, and their impact doesn’t stop at borders.”

This week, tensions reignited globally after Donald Trump deployed nuclear submarines in the region. Russia responded with a warning, referencing its Cold War-era “Dead Hand” retaliation system. Meanwhile, North Korea continues missile tests, and nuclear arsenals are being expanded worldwide.

“We need to reject the idea that nuclear weapons are necessary for defence,” said Eblenkamp. “They don’t guarantee peace. They guarantee catastrophe.”

Eighty years later, the world still lives in the shadow of the bomb—while voices like Yoshito’s urge us not to forget what happened that day in Hiroshima.

(METRO)

ALSO READ TOP STORIES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE