A 93-year-old man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, officials said.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified hibakusha of the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing of Nagasaki, but has now also been confirmed as surviving the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier, city officials said.
Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in Hiroshima. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city officials said.
"As far as we know, he is the first to be officially recognized as a survivor of the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Nagasaki official Toshiro Miyamoto said. "It's such an unfortunate case, but it is possible that there are more people like him."
Certification qualifies survivors for compensation, including monthly allowances, free medical checkups and funeral costs. But Yamaguchi's compensation will not increase, Miyamoto said.
"My double radiation exposure is now an official government record. It can tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings even after I die," Yamaguchi was quoted as saying by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.