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The notice came to Nagasaki's Urakami neighborhood leaders about a month
after the bomb fell.
"No trees or other plants will grow there for 70 years. ... It is recommended
all residents find a suitable place to live elsewhere," the government
message read.
Dr. Takashi Nagai refused to go.
The physician and radiology professor had lost his wife and his home a few
hundred feet from Ground Zero, and he wanted to stand his ground.
Lacking radiation-measuring instruments, he watched the ground.
"After three weeks, we found a swarm of ants. ... and they were vigorous
and strong," Nagai wrote in 1946.
"After a month, we found worms in large numbers. Then we found rats
running around .... And I began to think that if small animals could survive,
human life was also possible."
So Nagai built a hut on the rubble of his old home, where he lived until
1951 when the 43-year-old physician died of leukemia -a disease he had prior
to the bombing.
"He was one of the first to rebuild his home in the destroyed area,"
said the Rev. Jose Aguilar, a Jesuit priest who has lived 33 years in Nagasaki
and is a scholar of Nagai's writings.
Indeed, Nagai's courageous stand was correct. Within a few days of the bombing,
radiation had decayed to safe levels. And long-term environmental contamination
never appeared to be a problem, according to Yutaka Hasegawa, director of
the Nagasaki branch of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, which
has studied atomic bomb survivors for 48 years.
Following Nagai's lead, others began to leave the huddled groups of survivors
who were living in primitive dugouts elsewhere in the city and built huts
in the destroyed area. Gradually, the huts were rebuilt into houses.
Wheat and green vegetables were planted in the bombed area, but the first
crops of corn and sweet potatoes were disasters.
As life returned to the city, so also began the process of mental healing.
Aguilar credits Nagai with being the leader of that healing, just as he
led the resettlement.
By nature, Japanese don't like to discuss humiliating experiences, Aguilar
said, adding, "The bomb could be considered the ultimate humiliation
of all."
For decades, many survivors would talk only with close friends about their
experiences. Even 50 years later, some survivors won't talk to their grandchildren
about the bombing.
But within a year of the bombing, Nagai wrote a book - The Bells Of Nagasaki.
"He was the first in Japan to write about the bomb," Aguilar said.
"No one would open up his life or write about the bomb. He wrote about
the war, but had no bitterness about the bomb."
The book described the blast, the destruction, the symptoms and struggles
of the wounded and dying and Nagai's spiritual introspection about it all.
Converted to Christianity years earlier by his wife, he wrote about hope,
optimism and sacrifice.
U.S. occupation forces banned the book in 1946, but the Americans finally
allowed publication in 1949 when an appendix describing Japanese atrocities
in the Philippines was added. That appendix was dropped when the U.S. occupation
forces left.
Nagai's writings helped mold Nagasaki's response to the bomb, said the Rev.
Diego Yuuki, a Jesuit museum director who lived in Hiroshima before moving
to Nagasaki in 1961.
"In Hiroshima, they became angry. In Nagasaki, they prayed," Yuuki
said.
And after the prayer, Nagasaki set about quickly to rebuild itself.
It was a monumental task: approximately 30,000 homes were destroyed or damaged.
Along with the homes, two arms factories, a steel works, an iron foundry,
two hospitals, a medical school and part of a shipyard were destroyed.
The blast was contained between two mountain ranges on the east and west,
funneling the damage about 2H miles north and south of Ground Zero. Nearly
everything within three-quarters of a mile from the blast's center was destroyed.
But the main Mitsubishi shipyard - the primary military target in the city
- escaped major damage. And that proved to be a key in Nagasaki's recovery,
said Haruhiro Kawaguchi, associate chief of the city's commerce and industry
department.
In October 1945, Mitsubishi started building fishing boats, making 170 the
first year. In 1955, the shipyard shifted from making fishing boats to big
tankers.
Today, shipbuilding is the biggest industry in the city of 450,000, employing
about 11,000 of Nagasaki's work force of 180,000. Shipyard customers come
from all over the world, including the United States.
Also helping Nagasaki recover was a demand for more coal and oil to fuel
Japan's industrial recovery in the early 1950s.
Coal mines near Nagasaki flourished. Foreign oil traveled through Nagasaki's
port on its way to the rest of Japan. The mines were closed by the 1970s,
but the demand for imported oil continues to be strong.
Fishing is another major Nagasaki industry. The city's harbor is home port
to 1,020 fishing boats, which caught 198,000 tons of mackerel, tuna, yellowtails,
shrimp, squid and octopus in 1993.
Tourism also has become a steady industry. About 5.59 million tourists visited
Nagasaki in 1993.
Like the Tri-Cities, Nagasaki is exploring ways to cope with expected economic
downswings. The shipyard is switching to building double-hulled oil tankers
to replace the more leak-prone single-hull tankers on the seas now.
New industries - including manufacturing light ceramic engines and parts
for wind turbines - are being considered.
And Nagasaki's links with China are resurfacing. Last year, Nagasaki and
Shanghai opened a shipping route between the two for the first time since
World War II.