Hell on earth, twice over

Today's the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. A couple months ago I read this account of three men--still alive today--who had the wildly unlikely experience of living through both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks.

Mr Yamaguchi and his friends are freaks of history, victims of a fate so callous and improbable that it almost raises a smile. In 1945, they were working in Hiroshima where the world’s first atomic bomb exploded, on 6 August 1945. 140,000 people died as a result of the explosion; by pure chance, Mr Yamaguchi, Mr Sato and Mr Iwanaga, were spared. Stunned and injured, reeling from the horrors around them, they left the city for the only place they could have gone – their home town, Nagasaki, 180 miles to the west. There, on 9th August, the second atomic bomb exploded over their heads.

Regardless what one thinks of the decision to use two atomic weapons on Japan at the end of the war, it was virtually inevitable the nuclear genie would be let out of the bottle at some point. It is simply in the evil nature of mankind to seek ever-more-effective destruction. We have perverted the creative nature bestowed on us in the image of our Creator, so that we're capable of taking knowledge and producing the nuclear medicine that often keeps octogenarians like these men alive, and yet is related to the many weapons still lurking in quiet corners, waiting to be unleashed in a fit of madness. As one who's kept watch over these instruments, it's my constant prayer they are never let off their leash. May none ever experience again what these three men did.