Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This is what it looked like after the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima 75 years ago

USA TODAY

The most powerful weapon to ever be used against other humans was detonated by the United States in Japan 75 years ago.

On August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber famously known as the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, marking the first of two times the bomb has ever been used in warfare.

The death toll itself was mind-boggling. As many as 140,000 people ultimately died from the blast, but not all perished immediately. The residual health issues caused by intense radioactive fallout claimed thousands of lives in the months and years afterwards as well.

The city was leveled – less than 10 percent of the buildings in Hiroshima were left undamaged by the bomb, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Days later, on August 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, putting Japan on the brink of surrender.

The atomic bombings effectively ended WWII, but they have since served as a brutal lesson about the dangers of nuclear warfare. Three-quarters of a century later, tensions over nuclear weapons and how to ensure they are not used again are still very much with us.

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Here's what the bombing looked like.

A mushroom cloud billows about one hour after a nuclear bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945.

Shortly after the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare was dropped by the United States over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, survivors are seen as they receive emergency treatment by military medics on Aug. 6, 1945.

Here is a view of the total destruction of Hiroshima, the result of the first atomic bomb dropped in wartime, August 6, 1945.

Smoke rises around 20,000 feet above Hiroshima, Japan, after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Aug. 6, 1945.

The "Enola Gay" Boeing B-29 Superfortress lands at Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands after the U.S. atomic bombing mission against the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

White smoke rises from detonation of the atom bomb over Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945. Photo was made from 25,000 feet after the bomb hit its target.

Church services continued in the Nagarekawa Protestant Church in 1945 after the atomic bomb destroyed the church in Hiroshima.

Twisted metal and rubble marks what once was Hiroshima, Japan's most industrialized city, seen some time after the atom bomb was dropped here.

A Japanese woman is seen with a child in traditional Japanese clothing, who survived the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, in Nagasaki, Japan, in this Aug. 9, 1945 file photo. Their faces are marked with burns by the heat of the explosion. Scanty food rations are given out to the suffering public.

Two people walk on a cleared path through the destruction resulting from the Aug. 6 detonation of the first atomic bomb, Sept. 8, 1945.

A Japanese man and woman, victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, sit in a damaged bank building converted into a hospital near the centre of the town in Japan on Oct. 6, 1945. The woman's face is severely scarred by the tremendous heat generated by the explosion. The burns show a pronounced reddish cast.

A twisted mass of steel, marks the site of a large building in the industrial centre of atomized Hiroshima, Japan, on Sept. 13, 1945, directly behind, in grim contrast, a partly demolished building towers up, amid acres of gutted and fire blackened debris.

Follow USA TODAY's Jay Cannon on Twitter: @JayTCannon

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