By RIKA YUMINAGA/ Staff Writer
August 22, 2020 at 18:55 JST
Chieko Ryu, who as a girl was captured in an iconic photograph taken a day after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945, died on Aug. 15, the 75th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. She was 90 years old.
The cause of death was cardiac arrest at a hospital in Okawa, Fukuoka Prefecture. Her funeral service was held two days later.
Ryu was born in Nagasaki.
On the morning of Aug. 9, 1945, Ryu, 15 years old at the time, left her home in the city with her father. The family had grown nervous about the ominous turn the war was taking and was thinking about fleeing the city for safety. Ryu and her father went to look for a safe haven.
Ryu's mother was not feeling well. So Ryu went in her place, leaving her mother and younger brother at home.
It was on the morning that the atomic bomb detonated over the city. Her home was only 300 meters or so from the epicenter.
The following day, Ryu and her father made their way back through the ruined city to find their home, or at least where it had once stood.
The girl found a charred body in the debris of her home, and thought it was her mother because of a hair clip she had on her head. Ryu had purchased it as a gift for her mother with her very first salary.
Ryu was photographed looking dazed in the ruins of her home beside the charred corpse.
The moment, captured by an Imperial Japanese Army photographer, remains one of the most telling and chilling images of the horror of the atomic bombings.
The photograph is on display at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.
Ryu often visited elementary and junior high schools to speak of her war experience and to express her wishes for no more wars or nuclear weapons.
The city of Hiroshima was leveled by an atomic bomb three days earlier.
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Chieko Ryu during an interview with The Asahi Shimbun in January 2015 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
