One of the great survivors

The only person officially recognised to have survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb explosions has died in Japan aged 93. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was from Nagasaki, and worked as a draughtsman, designing oil tankers for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

In the summer of 1945, he was seconded to a shipyard in Hiroshima – an arrangement that was due to end on August 6. That very morning, Enola Gay dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Mr Yamaguchi suffered severe burns to the upper half of his body, but managed to return to his hometown.

He was there three days later when the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. In later years, he became a determined campaigner for nuclear disarmament and addressed the United Nations.

A uranium atomic bomb was used against Hiroshima, and it exploded nearly 1,900 feet above the city. In the immediate aftermath, about 90,000 people died, while in the years that followed, the effects of burns, injuries and radiation carried off perhaps another 50,000. Against Nagasaki, a more powerful plutonium bomb was used, but the city had better air raid precautions, and the total death toll was around 75,000.