57 years as a Hibakusha

"If not A-bombed, I could have lived a different life." 73-year-old Kohata Etsuko cannot bend her knees, and her right ankle is almost paralyzed. She was 16 years old when she was exposed to radiation 1.2 kilometers away from the ground-zero in Nagasaki City.

At 11:02 a.m. of August 9 in 1945, with a sudden flash, the U.S. forces dropped an A-bomb on Nagasaki. Kohata, soldering parts of torpedoes at Mitsubishi's munitions factory, fell unconscious during the bombing. When she came back to her senses, she found that her thighs were caught between a crack in the concrete floor and a machine tool, while her body hung upside down. Her left foot was broken, her right thigh severely injured. She was carried out from the factory, but hampered by a fierce fire, she had to stay over night just outside the factory. Thus, she was left amid the radiation there.

Because hospitals were full of casualties, Kohata had to wait for three months, suffering from high fever, at home with only antiseptics. Her right knee was infested with maggots and pus was oozing out. During the three years after she finally could go into hospital, she had her legs operated on seven times. She was a teenager but needed much time to recover.

It was the Nagasaki Council of the A-Bombs Sufferers (established in 1956) that helped Kohata escape from despair. "Thankful to be alive," she felt pleased that she could work and meet people at a "Shop of Hibakusha" run by this Council. She worked there until 1979. Hoping to bring an end to the A-bomb which made her legs disabled, she filed an application to the government in September 1997 to be recognized as "Hibakusha with A-bomb-related diseases."

If the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare recognizes that their diseases or injuries among Hibakusha were caused by radiation from the A-bombings and that they need medication, the ministry will issue a certificate of "Hibakusha with A-bomb diseases." Then the government will pay their medical expenses and special allowances.

However, the government policy to abandon Hibakusha hinders this recognition from being given to Hibakusha. As of the end of 2001, the number of "Hibakusha with A-bomb diseases" is 2,169. The figure is less than one percent of about 300,000 victims who are officially recognized as Hibakusha and given a "Hibakusha Book."

The government rejected Kohata's application in October 1998. She soon filed a complaint against the rejection, but has received no answer for more than three years.

She said that the reason why she claims the official recognition as "Hibakusha with A-bomb diseases" is not only for herself but also for the dead victims.

She went on to say, "If I hadn't been in the factory that day, if Japan had stopped the war earlier, if the A-bomb hadn't been dropped, my life would have been different." Her 57 years of suffering continues. (end)