Bamboo thicket were the only shelter for the people.

"It wasn't an earthquake.But what was it?"

"A ball of flame bombs?"

"It was some kind of bomb."

"No,it was a death ray."

"There was a flash and boom..."

"No,there wasn't any boom in Hiroshima.
It must have been too loud.
Only flash--PIKA!"

The people called that unknown thing PIKA.


Just outside Hiroshima stood mane bamboo thickets.

The bamboo stalks were all burnt on the side facing the city center.

The homeless found refuge in the thickets and there one by one breathed their final breaths.


We no longer had the courage to answer the pleas foe help.
There was no more space in our house for the wounded to lie.


Among the multitude of corpses under Mitaki Bridge,a human figure whose age or sex no one could tell,finally slumped in death on August 26.

After all those long days since August 6.


There was no one to take away the corpses--

A typhoon and flood in early September carried the all way out to sea.