“80 years have passed, a long time, and many people who suffered the atomic bomb And the war, only a few older ones are left, ”he explained to the EFE Yoshiko Kajimoto agency, 94 -year -old woman who survived the nuclear attack launched by the United States about Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
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Kajimoto is, for the moment, the first participant of the Hibakusha testimonial simulator, as the survivors of atomic bombings are known. The Japanese public chain initiative NHK seeks to preserve the memories of the horror they lived through artificial intelligence tools.
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It consists of a large screen with high definition video that allows users to ask the survivors questions through a microphone and receive an answer. Unlike the traditional testimonial videos, this project provides a “realistic” sensation to visitors, said Seiko Ikuta producer during a press trip last July organized by the foreign press center of Japan.
The Hibakusha testimonial simulator allows attendees to “talk” with the Hibakusha.
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The tool, which does not use generative, allows citizens to ask any type of question to survivors; From how they lived on the day of bombing what the music they listened to on the radio was at that time. Then, using keywords, interpret the question and look for the most consistent answer between a file of about 900 creating the feeling that a real conversation is being had.
Kajimoto, who was in an ammunition factory at the time of bombing about 2.3 kilometers from the hypocenter of it, confesses to having had some reservations initially but decided to participate when realizing that less and fewer survivors are alive and it is important that their memory passes to the new generations.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Hibakusha number has fallen below 100,000 for the first time since there is a record, according to data published last July by the Japanese Ministry of Welfare. At the end of March, 99,130 people had the official victim certificate, 7,695 less than the previous year. The average age of the survivors increased to 86.13 years, compared to 85.58 of the previous year, a reflection of the aging of a population marked by the atomic tragedy that occurred almost eight decades ago.
Yoshiko Kajimoto, 94, is the first survivor who has participated in the project.
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– Record visits –
The project arrives shortly after the Museums of La Paz de Hiroshima and Nagasaki broke a historical record of visitors with 3 million people attending in 2024, a large part of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Hibakusha and a wave of tourism to the country.
In the case of the Museum for the Peace of Hiroshima, this received more than 2 million people between April 2024 and last February, referring to the Japanese fiscal year. Last March, the museum also reached the milestone of the 80 million visitors since its opening, in the year in which the 70th anniversary of it commemorates and in which 80 years of the event that completely devastated this Japanese city.
Toshihiro Toya, assistant director of the museum, points out that “the weakness of YEN” has facilitated the increase of foreign visitors to the country. Japan received in the first six months of this 2025 to 21.51 million visitors, a new record, so if this trend continues, 40 million at the end of this year could reach, above 36 million of 2024.
Toya considers that the trend has also increased between those “who want to learn about peace” and the atomic bomb of Hiroshima. The leaders of the so -called Group of the Seven – conformed by Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom – visited the museum during their stay in the city on the occasion of the group’s summit in 2023, as well as the Ukrainian President, Volodimir Zelenski, who participated in that appointment.
The Museums of La Paz de Hiroshima and Nagasaki broke a historical record of visitors with 3 million people during 2024.
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The number of attendees to the Nagasaki Atomic Pump Museum, meanwhile, exceeded 800,000 visitors in fiscal year 2024. A figure that is only exceeded by the 1,135 million visits that came in 1996, year of its inauguration. Since fiscal year 2002, the annual figure has been constantly maintained between 650,000 and 750,000 visitors, although it fell dramatically to about 230,000 in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Since the Municipal Peace Promotion Division, they point out that the increase in cruise scales in Nagasaki has been one of the factors that explain the rebound.
“The current situation of tension in the world and the concession of the Nobel Peace Prize could have increased the global interest in nuclear weapons,” said an official of the area to the EFE agency.
With its exposed metallic skeleton and its twisted beams, the atomic bomb dome continues to stand 80 years after the nuclear bombing that swept Hiroshima as a reminder of suffering, but also as a symbol of hope that attracts more than 1.7 million visitors around the world every year.
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Opinion column
An unforgettable and unrepeatable tragedy
By: Carlos Aquino, director of CEAS
The 80th anniversary of this tragedy that caused more than 200,000 deaths almost immediately is being held these days. A tragedy that should never be repeated again. And it is important to remember it, at a time when some countries seek to have more of those nuclear artifacts, such as North Korea, or as another invasive power, through one of its leaders, using it in their invasion in Ukraine.
To have a more direct awareness of this tragedy I think everyone should have the opportunity to visit the Museums of La Paz de Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I had that opportunity to do it, in 1994. It is shocking to see the photos, listen to the recorded testimonies of people, see the remains of clothing or other objects that remain in that tragedy.
But I would like to present a documentary that is currently being exhibited by the Japanese state television station NHK to have an idea of the magnitude of that tragedy. Titled “Hiroshima Tower of Life”, tells the story of the Red Cross Hospital of Hiroshima, one of the only two hospitals that were standing within a two -kilometer radius of the epicenter of the atomic bomb in that city. Ten thousand people went to the hospital to attend immediately after the explosion.
The documentary is based on the fact that 2024 was discovered new documents and materials, such as the medical records of 600 patients victims of the atomic bomb, and in the daily registry held by the director of the Takeuchi Kan hospital. Patients called the Hiroshima Life Tower Hospital.
A hospital section is still standing in that place. This program tells the story, in the immediate days, of those who came to be treated after the explosion. The hospital had a staff of 554 people, but of them 51 died and 250 were injured in the explosion, and, even so, I continue to attend. The program was broadcast in December 2024 and is available until December of this year 2025 on the channel website.
One of the most shocking testimonies in the documentary, one of the surviving nurses he attended, tells a patient who had arrived, all burned, and begged to give water. This was scarce and as the nurse could get a glass of water, not so clean. The patient drank a sip, with a face of relief, thanked the nurse and immediately died.
*Carlos Aquino studied his mastery and doctorate in economics in Japan, at the University of Kobe and is director of the UNMSM Asian Studies Center.
