Former US President Barack Obama visited Hiroshima in 2016, marking the first time a sitting US president visited the city since the atomic bombing in 1945. A defining moment of his visit was when he embraced Shigeaki Mori, an eight-year-old survivor of the bombing, at the Peace Memorial Park.
Mori’s experience with the bomb left him unconscious and he spent decades searching for victims cremated at his school playground. He also identified 12 Americans who died in the attack.
Mori passed away on March 14 after a hospital stay in Hiroshima. The legacy of “hibakusha,” or nuclear bomb survivors, continues as they strive to keep alive the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the only cities ever to suffer a nuclear attack. These cities have recorded over 550,000 deaths from the attacks and related radiation illnesses.