The city of Nagasaki is located in the western section of Japan’s Kyushu Island and is the capital of Nagasaki Prefecture. Nagasaki started as a small fishing village and eventually turned into a major seaport linking Japan with the outside world. During Japan’s isolationist period, Nagasaki was the only port allowed to trade with Holland and China.

When World War II began, Nagasaki retained its significance as a major seaport and also became a huge military installation, with numerous manufacturing assets, primarily shipbuilding, weapon-making and steel smelting plants.

Nagasaki is located across two valleys, through which two rivers flow. A mountain range dividing residential neighborhoods and the industrial zone predetermined the city’s slow urban development.

For many years, Nagasaki expanded without an agreed-upon urban development plan. Residential buildings and plants in the industrial zone were located in direct proximity to each other. The main business districts and residential areas were located in a small valley near the harbor’s waterfront. The Mitsubishi steel works and shipyard were located on the southern side of the same street, while the Mitsubishi-Urakami torpedo plant was on the street’s northern side. The main business quarters and residential neighborhoods were situated on a small plain near the harbor.

Nagasaki was never subjected to large-scale air strikes prior to the atomic bombing. On August 1, 1945, however, several high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city. Some of the bombs hit shipyards and docks in Nagasaki’s southwestern districts, as well as the Mitsubishi steel works and weapons plant, a medical school and a hospital. Although the air strike caused relatively limited damage, local residents became alarmed, and some of them, mostly schoolchildren, were evacuated to rural areas, thereby reducing the population of Nagasaki to some extent shortly before the atomic bombing.

The United States initially planned to drop the 4.5-ton Fat Man atomic bomb, with a plutonium-239 isotope core and a yield of 20 kilotons on August 11, but later decided to move the attack to August 9.

On August 9 at 11:02 a.m. local time, the crew of the B-29 Bockscar dropped the nuclear bomb on Nagasaki. The bomb exploded high above the city’s industrial valley, almost halfway between the two main local targets, the Mitsubishi steel works and weapons plant and the Mitsubishi-Urakami torpedo plant.

Over 73,000 people were reported killed or missing, and 35,000 more subsequently died of acute radiation syndrome, known as radiation sickness. Over 50 percent of the atomic blast’s victims suffered from burns; up to 30 percent were affected by the primary shock wave, and 20 percent succumbed to penetrating radiation. Fires destroyed most residential buildings.

The atomic explosion over Nagasaki affected approximately 43 square miles (117 square kilometers), including 8.5 square miles (22 square kilometers)of water surface and only 9.8 square miles (26 square kilometers) of residential property and industrial zones. The remaining areas were sparsely populated, which limited the casualties.

The consequences of dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki were no less horrendous than in Hiroshima. A Japanese report describing the situation in Nagasaki noted that the city resembled a cemetery with no surviving headstones.

Today, the ground zero area is located in a prestigious Nagasaki suburb. The so-called hypocenter at the city’s Peace Park is the only reminder of the disaster, where a black stone column in the center marks ground zero of the attack.

The Peace Park is famous for the large statue of a man called the Peace Statue. The statue’s raised right arm points at the falling bomb, while its left stretches horizontally to symbolize peace and forgiveness.