Five lesser known facts about the Hiroshima bombing

Today is the day when in 1945, the United States shocked the world by dropping the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in the Second World War. Days later, another city (Nagasaki) was targeted by a US atomic bomb. Japan marks 76 years of the Hiroshima bombing today.

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Though many facts related to the bombings are in the public domain, still many things are known by just a few people. Here are some lesser-known facts about the days the shook the world to its core:

Most of the city of Hiroshima was burned by a wall of heat up to 4,000 C (7,232 F) — hot enough to melt steel — killing tens of thousands. Almost the same thing happened on August 9 during the Nagasaki bombing.

The oleander is the official flower of the city of Hiroshima because it was the first plant to blossom again after the atomic bomb blast.

According to a book, the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was assembled mid air, just before the bombing. It was done so because of the fear of destruction it would have caused if it went of in case the plane carrying it crashed before the bomb was actually dropped on the intended target.

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Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a worker at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was in Hiroshima for business on August 6.Yamaguchi survived the blast on that fateful day. However, he went back to Nagasaki the very next day, and was hit by the second strike days later. He survived the bombing too, making him the only survivor of both the bombings.  Yamaguchi died in 2010 at the age of 93.

A vault at Teikoku Bank survived the explosion in Hiroshima. The vault was manufactured by an American brand called “The Mosler Safe Company”.