By Neena Bhandari
Sydney, 11.03.2012 (InDepth News Analysis -IDN): Junko Morimoto was 13 years old when the United States of America dropped the first atomic bomb on her hometown of Hiroshima. She was only 1700 metres away from the hypocentre and if it weren’t for a stomach bug that confined her to home, she would have been amongst the 360 students who died at her city center school on August 6, 1945.
Morimoto has an inoperable brain tumour affecting her balance. Nearly seven decades after the nuclear bombs exploded, Japanese people are still living each day with the terrible aftermath of the radiation on the environment and their health, with genetic damage passing to future generations.