Tsutomu Yamaguchi: survived the bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Photograph: Jemal Countess/WireImage
On 6 August 1945, Mr. Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima, on a business trip when the American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb on the city. Yamaguchi lived, while 140,000 other people who were in the city that morning died, some in an agonising instant, others many months later.
Burned and barely able to comprehend what had happened - only that he had witnessed a bomb unlike any used before - Yamaguchi spent a fitful night in an air raid shelter before returning home the following day.
His home, 180 miles to the west, was Nagasaki. He arrived home on August 8, thankful that his life had been spared. As he was resting the following day, trying to regain his composure, a second American bomber dropped the second atomic bomb on Mr. Yamaguchi's home town, Nagasaki, killing 70,000 more. Miraculously, Yamaguchi survived for the second time in 3 days.
More than 60 years later, on March 23, 2009, the 93-year-old became the first and only known survivor of both attacks to win official recognition from Japanese authorities.
On January 10, 2010, Mr. Yamaguchi died, apparently of old age.
So it goes.
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