[Global Times Comprehensive Report] On August 6, 1945, a sudden catastrophic disaster placed Hiroshima, Japan, in history books. The atomic bomb explosion destroyed the entire city, leveling everything within a 1,600-meter radius of the nuclear blast center, and more than 140,000 people lost their lives. On the 9th of the same month, another atomic bomb exploded in Nagasaki, causing about 70,000 deaths. The shadow of nuclear explosions gradually faded over time, yet people began to ponder another question: If the United States had not chosen Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but Tokyo or Osaka, what would the historical trajectory have been? According to a report on the Japanese news website 'en.rocketnews24.com' on August 15, based on data provided by Professor Mark Carlson of the University of Nebraska, The Huffington Post designed an interactive Google map to answer people's questions.
According to Japanese official statistics, 69% of buildings in Hiroshima were destroyed in the 1945 nuclear explosion. A map shows what destructive effects would have resulted if the target of the nuclear bomb had been the large city of Tokyo. First, from Kanda in the north to Higashi-Ginza in the south (shown as black shaded areas on the map) would have been directly leveled. Surrounding the black shaded area is a circular red shaded zone, representing severe direct damage. Further out is a yellow circular zone with a diameter of about 3,500 meters, including areas such as Yotsuya, Ueno, and Matsubashicho, where buildings would collapse and catch fire. The outermost red circular area has a diameter of about 7,000 meters, extending to Shinagawa, Shinjuku, Minamisenju, and Higashi-Ojima.
Another map illustrates the extent of damage if a nuclear bomb had exploded in the center of Osaka. If the United States had chosen to drop an atomic bomb on Osaka, the entire Kansai region of Japan would have been affected.
The制作 of these two maps was primarily carried out by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which hopes to use these data and place names to help people truly understand the impact of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosions. In addition to these data, the museum also displays a series of deeply moving exhibits, including personal belongings, photographs, and the suffering records of firsthand witnesses. On the 69th anniversary of the nuclear explosions, it is hoped that such exhibitions can allow people from different regions to truly feel the horror of the disaster and cherish the hard-won peace we have today. (Intern Translator: Yang Lin, Editor: Zhu Yingku)
If the United States had dropped an atomic bomb on Tokyo.
Replies (15)
In fact, the United States dropping those two atomic bombs on Japan actually saved Japan; otherwise, Japan would have been wiped out by the Allied forces. The atomic bombs only killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese people.
If it weren't for the atomic bomb, just imagine how many hundreds of thousands of people the Allied forces would have killed if they invaded Japan.
Do you also know how many people died when the Japanese invaded our China? Do you know how many times that is compared to those hundreds of thousands? In the Nanjing Massacre alone, we lost hundreds of thousands of compatriots.
Fascism must be eradicated; its actions are outrageous, and it's fortunate that the United Nations did not annihilate Japan.
— All replies loaded —