Chiyoko Iwanaga was 9 years old and living in Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, when she saw two airplanes in the sky above her and then was hit by a flash and blast. 

The young girl was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb at about 10.5 kilometers from ground zero while on her way home from helping her mother in the fields.

When she arrived home, she found the windows had been blown out from their frames and had shattered.

A week later, her hair fell out when she combed it. Her gums bled, and her face swelled.

In her 40s, she experienced symptoms such as losing her voice for several days a year and coughing up phlegm mixed with blood. She was diagnosed with hypothyroidism.

She still has high blood pressure, diabetes and Meniere’s disease.

Today, Iwanaga, 87, who lives in Nagasaki, visits the Nagasaki prefectural office and city government office almost every month to convey her desire to be quickly recognized as hibakusha.

However, Iwanaga does not qualify as hibakusha based on the government’s definition because she was outside the government’s designated zone during the bombing.

Though they were under the mushroom clouds of the atomic bombs in 1945, there are 6,796 survivors not recognized as hibakusha nationwide.

Instead, they are collectively known as “hibaku taikensha” (people who were exposed to radiation), who were outside the zone the government designated for receiving the atomic-bomb survivor’s certificates and public health benefits.

Some of them were at the same distance in a straight line from ground zero as recognized hibakusha were when the bombs detonated.

As the average age of survivors surpasses 85, hibaku taikensha continue to raise their voices for their own recognition.

STRICTER CONDITIONS

The designated zone to be recognized as hibakusha in Nagasaki is a strange oval shape, stretching up to 12 km both north and south and up to 7 km both east and west from ground zero.

It was determined based on the administrative divisions at the time of the bombing.

Even those like Iwanaga who were within a 12-km radius are classified as hibaku taikensha if they were outside the designated zone.

Those recognized as hibakusha are, in principle, entitled to free medical expenses and can receive a monthly health care allowance of about 30,000 yen ($209) for specific illnesses.

The government’s stance is that hibaku taikensha “are not directly affected by radiation.”

Unless hibaku taikensha are diagnosed as having a mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the bombing, they cannot receive subsidies for medical expenses.

The subsidies are more limited than those for recognized hibakusha.

“Why is a mental disorder the condition for us?” Iwanaga said. “I can’t accept that. Isn’t that discrimination?

“We want (the government) to recognize us as hibakusha. We’re not saying this just because we want support.”

‘BLACK RAIN’ DIFFERENCE

Differences in treatment also exist between Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The Hiroshima High Court ruled in 2021 that people could have received adverse health effects from internal exposure to radiation if they drank water containing radioactive particles or ingested radiation through vegetables due to radioactive “black rain” that fell in the suburbs of Hiroshima following the bombing.

The court said, “if the possibility could not be denied, the victims would be considered as hibakusha.”

The ruling was finalized.

The government is using new standards implemented in April last year and recognizing those exposed to the black rain as hibakusha.

However, the government has not included Nagasaki in the standards, saying “there is no objective record of rain falling outside the designated zone.”

But there are testimonies in Nagasaki about rain and ash falling outside the designated zone.

Hiroki Hayashida, 82, was exposed to the atomic bomb in Toishi village, now Toishimachi district in Nagasaki, when he was 4.

Though his memories of the bombing are hazy, he heard about it from his sister-in-law Risu, who had lived with him. She died in 2008.

He recalls her saying, “I saw crops covered in white ash in the fields behind our house.”

In fiscal 1999, the Nagasaki city government and other organizations conducted a survey of 8,700 residents who lived outside the designated zone.

It found 129 testimonies related to rain and 1,874 related to ash and other substances.

However, the government remains unwilling to provide similar relief as it has for those in Hiroshima.

Hayashida has had a heart valve disease since he was about 18. He currently continues to visit a hospital for angina pectoris and other heart diseases.

“The atomic bomb may have affected me,” he said.

He shared his story in the first media interview he has given on the subject.

“I spoke in the hope that the testimony about the ash, which I heard about from my sister-in-law, would be useful in helping hibaku taikensha,” he said.

(This article was written by Mami Okada and Emika Terashima.)