The Trees That Survived Hiroshima

NYT OPINION: The Trees That Survived Hiroshima
By Will Matsuda
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: May 5, 2023 at 03:00AM

The ginkgo — a species native to China with fan-shaped leaves that turn a vibrant gold in the fall — is one of the oldest and most resilient trees on Earth.

My grandmother doesn’t talk about the bomb. Whenever I ask, she claims she doesn’t know what happened to her family, though I suspect she simply doesn’t want to think about it. She was 20 years old and living in Honolulu on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, when the United States dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima. It detonated directly over the neighborhood where her family — including her grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins — lived. The bomb destroyed the city and killed over 100,000 people. She was told that only one uncle survived. Scientists estimate that during the explosion the ground temperature ranged from 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Celsius — hot enough to transform a human body into a fine black dust. When I think of that day, I imagine our family gathering around a table for breakfast and ending up in the wind.

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/opinion/hiroshima-japan-trees.html