GLASS
Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum, Artifacts
“The explosion created a supersonic shock wave which was responsible for destroying most of the buildings in the blast zone. Fully half of the bomb’s released energy was released in the form of this wind, which spread out at 440 meters per second (1600 km/hr or 1000 miles/hr; the speed of sound is 330 meters per second). It not only knocked things down, it also filled the air with debris. The section of concrete wall below has numerous glass shards embedded in it, even though it was 2200 meters (one and a half miles) from the hypocenter, and sheltered from the blast by a low hill.” [Hiroshima]
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Travel/Japan/Hiroshima/AtomicBombMuseum/IndividualArtifacts/
Yukiharu did not realize at first that a bomb had exploded. He thought there had been an electrical accident at the plant building he was working in. Then it suddenly became dark and “I heard a huge explosion. The roof of the building had collapsed, and we were under the broken roof. I felt a pain in my head. I managed to escape from the building. I did not know what was happening to us, because we had not experienced any serious bombing. . . . I was not badly hurt. . . . A piece of broken glass was sticking into my head.” [Hiroshima]
http://users.dickinson.edu/~history/product/steele/seniorthesis.htm
Ordinary wooden houses within a radius of one kilometer of the hypocenter were completely destroyed. Even the concrete buildings left standing were reduced to hollow shells. The buildings collapsed in one direction as if pointing toward the hypocenter. The blast wind slapped people against walls and showered them with a torrent of bullet-like glass splinters and debris.
Goes with this picture:
http://www1.city.nagasaki.nagasaki.jp/na-bomb/museum/m2-7e.html
Eiko Taoka, then 21, was one of nearly 100 passengers said to have been on board a streetcar that had left Hiroshima Station at a little after 8:00 a.m. and was in a Hatchobori area, 750 m from ground zero, when the bomb fell. Taoka was heading for Funairi with her one year old son to secure wagon in preparation for her move out of the building which was to be evacuated. At 8:15, as the streetcar approached Hatchobori Station, an intense flash and blast engulfed the car, instantly setting it on fire. Taoka’s son died of radiation sickness on August 28. The survival of only ten people on the streetcar have been confirmed to date.
When we were near in Hatchobori and since I had been holding my son in my arms, the young woman in front of me said, I will be getting off here. Please take this seat.’ We were just changing places when there was a strange smell and sound. It suddenly became dark and before I knew it, I had jumped outside…. I held [my son] firmly and looked down on him. He had been standing by the window and I think fragments of glass had pierced his head. His face was a mess because of the blood flowing from his head.Eiko Taoka, then 21, was one of nearly 100 passengers said to have been on board a streetcar that had left Hiroshima Station at a little after 8:00 a.m. and was in a Hatchobori area, 750 m from ground zero, when the bomb fell. Taoka was heading for Funairi with her one year old son to secure wagon in preparation for her move out of the building which was to be evacuated. At 8:15, as the streetcar approached Hatchobori Station, an intense flash and blast engulfed the car, instantly setting it on fire. Taoka’s son died of radiation sickness on August 28. The survival of only ten people on the streetcar have been confirmed to date.
http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/twocities/hiroshima/page14.shtml
Video – glass, rumbling, wind, darkness
VIDEO: 911.wtc.glass.blew.out Dailymotion
“I was standing next to 1 World Trade Center and then all of a sudden I heard rumbling and we all started running away from it [talking about WTC 2 collapse]. The glass like blew out and threw me onto the sidewalk … and I couldn’t see for like twenty seconds…”
IMG: https://apunked.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/morestuff/0002.jpg
URL: https://apunked.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/morestuff/aftermast25h.jpg
http://drjudywood.com/articles/dirt/dirt3.html
CLOUD and DARKNESS and SMOKE PLUME
Cloud cover
http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/911/index.php?filename=911/7-Misc/stampa/focus/focus.html
200,000+ gallons of water on the roof of each tower
Also there was supposed to be 200,000+ gallons of water on the roof of each tower – this water was spilled into stairwells etc, but was later all converted into water vapor reducing the brown color. (Observations Suggesting the Use of Small Hydrogen Bombs) http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/soldier4.htm
The bomber, piloted by the commander of the 509th Composite Group, Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew at low altitude on automatic pilot before climbing to 31,000 feet as it neared the target area. At approximately 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released “Little Boy,” its 9,700-pound uranium bomb, over the city. . . . the crew looked back at Hiroshima. “The city was hidden by that awful cloud . . . boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall,” Tibbets recalled. The yield of the explosion was later estimated at 15 kilotons (the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT). [Hiroshima] http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/hiroshima.htm
Yukiharu did not realize at first that a bomb had exploded. He thought there had been an electrical accident at the plant building he was working in. Then it suddenly became dark and “I heard a huge explosion. The roof of the building had collapsed, and we were under the broken roof. I felt a pain in my head. I managed to escape from the building. I did not know what was happening to us, because we had not experienced any serious bombing. . . . I was not badly hurt. . . . A piece of broken glass was sticking into my head.” [Hiroshima] http://users.dickinson.edu/~history/product/steele/seniorthesis.htm
The Hiroshima Meteorological Observatory reported that just after the flash, black smoke rose from the ground up to the sky reaching an altitude of several thousand meters, and covered the whole city. When the fireball disappeared, the angry clouds, like grey smoke, rose and reached an altitude of 8,000 meters in 5 minutes after the explosion.
One of the Enola Gay crew recorded in his flight diary, “9:00a.m…..Clouds were observed. Altitude of 12,000 meters or more.” From a distance the cloud formation looked like a mushroom growing out of the ground, with white cloud at the top and yellowish clouds enveloping reddish-black clouds, creating a color that cannot be described as while, black, red or yellow. [Hiroshima] http://www.gensuikin.org/english/photo.html
The Darkness Immediately after the Explosion — Why did it get pitch-dark?
Tsutomu IGARASHI
In Chiyoko KUWABARA’s testimony, she mentioned that “it got pitch-dark” right after the explosion. In others’ atomic-bomb testimonies on record, we often find descriptions of “a shroud of darkness”. What’s the cause of it? I would like to infer the cause based on “Genshibakudan Saigai Chousa Houkokushu (Collection of Investigation Reports on Atomic Bomb Disaster)”published by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 1953.
Could only dust cause that darkness? What caused the light to be completely blocked for as long a few dozen minutes? I think this can relate how tremendous the atomic-bombing was. Considering that not only the people indoors but the people outdoors like Chiyoko KUWABARA were also shrouded in darkness, it seems that some more complicated and fierce mechanism was hidden in this phenomenon of darkness.
At the point of atomic-bomb explosion above ground zero, “the temperature rose up to the extreme heat of a few million degrees Celsius and a fireball of several hundred thousand atmospheric pressures was created”, the Report says. It continues that “following that explosion the bomb blast (a shock wave and the blast wind), heat rays (infrared rays and visible rays) and initial radiation (gamma ray and neutron) were emitted.” (all information is by courtesy of Kunio NAGATA, teacher at Hiroshima Municipal Ujina Junior High School)
What happened at first was that, by the creation of a fireball, heat rays were emitted and everything was incinerated in a split second. Even on the ground in the hypocenter vicinity, temperatures reached several thousand degrees Celsius. Melted roof tiles and glass can verify that. Heat rays burned out everything. But it only lasted a moment. It says “The fireball blazed for ten seconds”, but I presume in fact it blazed for a second or two and lost its intense heat rapidly. So we can suppose that everything was ignited at that moment due to the heat of several thousand degrees Celsius.
Every organism exposed directly to the heat rays was burned. Trees, grass, houses, and walls, anything burnable was charred when they were exposed to the heat rays and their surfaces also became rough and were bubbled by the intense heat.
There are two things we tend to overlook: First are particles in the air. Numerous fine particles like dust and specks are suspended in the air. Those particles would be charred in a moment.
Related to this, U. S. bombers like the Enola Gay were strictly prohibited to bomb with radar; bombing by sight was always required. After studying the long term records of weather, they intentionally chose a fine clear day. The U.S. Forces really emphasized bombing by sight.
This was because bombing by sight was more accurate. But a more important reason was, if there were clouds, heat rays and radiation would be blocked by the particles in the clouds, and the effects halved. Absorbing the heat rays and the blast, clouds reduce the effects of bombing. If it is raining on the ground, the effects are much more reduced, not only by the particles in clouds but also by the water drops from them. Observation of the explosion also can be disturbed.
That was why they desperately needed a fine clear day for the world’s first atomic bombing. In other words, they chose a clear day not for bombing by sight but more to maximize the effects. As a result, bombing by sight required fine weather to target accurately, and bombing with radar was banned for that purpose.
I guess the U.S. already knew about the phenomenon of particles in the air burning and had its data. Charred particles were one of the factors causing the darkness we can’t overlook.
What also burned was the skin of animals and people’s clothes, as Kunio NAGATA, teacher at Hiroshima Municipal Ujina junior high school, mentioned.
When hibakusha were badly damaged by the atomic bombing, they were almost naked. Where were their clothes? At the first stage of the explosion the clothes exposed to the heat got charred and tattered instantaneously. And the heat rays penetrated the clothes, more heat absorbed at the dark parts of clothes, and then burned the skin. The skin also got burned and was hanging like rags. Naturally some parts of their hair got burned, too.
At the second stage, the blast came with the velocity of several hundred meters per second, sweeping away those charred organic materials. So what was left were people whose clothes and burnt skin had been swept away. People were naked or had their flesh exposed without skin. At the same time dirt and burned objects rushed back to them, made their faces filthy, terribly distorting their appearances. The blast wind would carry away some parts of the tissue-damaged skin. There were many people with the remnants of their torn skin hanging from their bodies.
We can see the fierceness of the shock wave from the Atomic-bomb Dome which was almost directly under the explosion. With that super high pressure hitting the ground it is not hard to imagine that the shock wave scooped out the soil and produced tremendous dust. Dust, houses, debris, concrete, and broken roof tiles were all swirled up and then blown away outwards.
And the shock wave hit not only once but twice. First the shock wave generated by the explosion traveled outward with a force several hundred thousand times normal atmospheric pressure. Then, because of the extremely low pressure at the center area, it became a vacuum; and then air rushed back in from the area around it with tremendous speed. That means people were stripped naked by the two blast winds in a few seconds.
The air that rushed in contained all sorts of burnt objects you can think of, including soot, dirt, dust, and the wreckage of buildings, blowing back towards the point of detonation 580 meters above the ground. Inorganic matter didn’t change color much but organic matter got charred and rushed back in. Trees, grass, particles in the air, skins of creatures, clothes, charred human skin and hair, all were absorbed and concentrated. Those which heated to a higher temperature went up further from the central point, forming a huge umbrella which was the lower part of the mushroom cloud. The reason that the lower part of the cloud was dark was that it contained incinerated objects. It was not just due to dirt or debris. We should assume that only incinerated objects which have lighter mass could go that high up.
Those objects went up to the sky and immediately formed a kind of a dome. Directly below it objects had already ignited and were flaming up. With this heat some parts kept rising up forming cumulonimbus cloud. The dome with a 1 kilometer- radius containing these incinerated substances was formed in the sky over ground zero, light was blocked and the ground was shrouded in darkness. This was what happened in just dozens of seconds.
The top of mushroom cloud reached about 9000meters high 8 minutes after the explosion.
Just then the wind was blowing from south-east. The rising cumulonimbus cloud drifted to the north-west as time went by, then was exposed to cold air and became rain that fell on the ground. This is “black rain”. The black rain contained charred organisms, namely burned human skins, hair and burned up clothes. This black rain also contained a great deal of radioactive substances.
The dozens of minutes of darkness generated by the atomic bombing symbolizes the tremendous power and its realities of it. It can be said that the fact that people were stripped naked in a split second led to this dome of darkness. We can also say the dome contained very small amount of burnt skin and clothes and blocked light.
Try to imagine the awful destructive power.
http://homepage2.nifty.com/hiroshimaaozora/yamiEnglish.htm
Interview with Patricia Ondrovic
KT: What did you do when the South Tower started coming down?
PO: I didn’t know what was happening, but there was a loud “roar” — lots of crashing sounds. I was attempting to put my stretcher back into the vehicle. The ground was shaking and I saw a sea of people, mostly the various agencies on scene, Fire, Police, EMS, all running towards me. I had no idea what they were running from, but I decided I’d be ahead of them and just started running west towards the river. As I was running, parked cars were blowing up and some were on fire, the street was cracking a bit as well. Very shortly after I started running, everything became one big black cloud. I was near the West Side Highway and I couldn’t see around me anymore.
http://killtown.blogspot.com/2006/02/911-rescuer-saw-explosions-inside-wtc.html
Chemical Analysis
In the first four hours after two planes hit the WTC towers, a massive cloud of dust and smoke from the collapse and explosions filled the air. “Basically, you had blackout,” Lioy said. The dust gradually settled, resuspended, and settled again over the next few days. On the third and fourth days, it rained and the dust in the air diminished. Fires continued to burn and the plume lofted, yet was intermittently pushed down by inversions. On the 13th day, search and rescue was abandoned, diesel engines started up, and the site became a construction zone. A plume of smoke rose from ground zero until the fires were extinguished on Dec. 20.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/NCW/8142aerosols.html
Video – smoke and heat
VIDEO: Wtc1_stairway_hot Dailymotion
Survivor in WTC 1 stairwell during WTC 2 collapse: “…and all of a sudden this huge cloud of dark grey smoke comes shooting up the stairway … and it was hot – very, very hot.”
Video – dust cloud and white plume
VIDEO: Wtc2_smoke Dailymotion
White smoke emerging from the dust cloud of the collapsing WTC 2.
Video – glass, rumbling, wind
VIDEO: 911.wtc.glass.blew.out Dailymotion
“I was standing next to 1 World Trade Center and then all of a sudden I heard rumbling and we all started running away from it. The glass like blew out and threw me onto the sidewalk … and I couldn’t see for like twenty seconds…”
COMBINED EFFECTS
Video of combined effects
VIDEO: EFFECTS Dailymotion | AtomicArchive
Chronological development of an air burst
http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/nuclear-low-yield-weapons-impact.htm
On the ground moments before the blast it was a calm and sunny Monday morning. An air raid alert from earlier that morning had been called off after only a solitary aircraft was seen (the weather plane), and by 8:15 the city was alive with activity — soldiers doing their morning calisthenics, commuters on foot or on bicycles, groups of women and children working outside to clear firebreaks. Those closest to the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned to black char. Nearby birds burst into flames in mid-air, and dry, combustible materials such as paper instantly ignited as far away as 6,400 feet from ground zero. The white light acted as a giant flashbulb, burning the dark patterns of clothing onto skin (right) and the shadows of bodies onto walls. Survivors outdoors close to the blast generally describe a literally blinding light combined with a sudden and overwhelming wave of heat. (The effects of radiation are usually not immediately apparent.) The blast wave followed almost instantly for those close-in, often knocking them from their feet. Those that were indoors were usually spared the flash burns, but flying glass from broken windows filled most rooms, and all but the very strongest structures collapsed. One boy was blown through the windows of his house and across the street as the house collapsed behind him. Within minutes 9 out of 10 people half a mile or less from ground zero were dead.
People farther from the point of detonation experienced first the flash and heat, followed seconds later by a deafening boom and the blast wave. Nearly every structure within one mile of ground zero was destroyed, and almost every building within three miles was damaged. [Hiroshima]
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/hiroshima.htm
After finishing his shift at the factory, Akio Sakita returned home and went to his backyard to do the washing. He heard the drone of airplanes above, but since the air raid alarm had been called off, he assumed that the planes he saw were Japanese planes out on surveillance runs. At that moment, he heard a loud roar in the sky, and as he looked up, “wondering if it had in fact been the enemy, a blinding flash of light filled the sky and my body was showered in a wave of intense heat. I felt a searing pain in my face and threw myself on to the ground with my eyes firmly shut. The rush of heat continued for several seconds. It was like a glimpse into the horror of hell. . . . I had suffered terrible burns all over the upper half of my body. [Hiroshima]
http://users.dickinson.edu/~history/product/steele/seniorthesis.htm
Mr. Sumiteru Taniguchi was a sixteen year old postal carrier at the time of the bomb. He was delivering mail on his normal route in Sumiyoshi town when the atomic bomb exploded. “After the sky flashed as lightning I was thrown with a bicycle on the ground when I came to around my skin on the left arm peeled off and hung down to fingertip, my back and hips were burned and became sore and clothes nearly didn’t remain. [Nagasaki]
http://users.dickinson.edu/~history/product/steele/seniorthesis.htm
The Hiroshima Meteorological Observatory reported that just after the flash, black smoke rose from the ground up to the sky reaching an altitude of several thousand meters, and covered the whole city. When the fireball disappeared, the angry clouds, like grey smoke, rose and reached an altitude of 8,000 meters in 5 minutes after the explosion.
One of the Enola Gay crew recorded in his flight diary, “9:00a.m…..Clouds were observed. Altitude of 12,000 meters or more.” From a distance the cloud formation looked like a mushroom growing out of the ground, with white cloud at the top and yellowish clouds enveloping reddish-black clouds, creating a color that cannot be described as while, black, red or yellow. [Hiroshima]
http://www.gensuikin.org/english/photo.html
Trinity Test – Explosion
At 05:29:45 local time (Mountain War Time), (11:29:45 GMT) the device exploded with an energy equivalent to around 20 kilotons of TNT (87.5 TJ). It left a crater of radioactive glass in the desert 10 feet (3 meters) deep and 1,100 ft (330 meters) wide. At the time of detonation, the surrounding mountains were illuminated brighter than daytime for one to two seconds, and the heat was reported as being as hot as an oven at the base camp. The observed colors of the illumination ranged from purple to green and eventually to white. The roar of the shock wave took 40 seconds to reach the observers.[4] The shock wave was felt over 100 miles (160 km) away, and the mushroom cloud reached 7.5 miles (12 km) in height [..]
In the official report on the test, General Farrell wrote, “The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun. It was golden, purple, violet, gray, and blue. It lighted every peak, crevasse and ridge of the nearby mountain range with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described but must be seen to be imagined…”[7]
News reports quoted a forest ranger 150 miles (240 km) west of the site as saying he saw “a flash of fire followed by an explosion and black smoke.” A New Mexican 150 miles (240 km) north said, “The explosion lighted up the sky like the sun.” Other reports remarked that windows were rattled and the sound of the explosion could be heard up to 200 miles (320 km) away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test
Interview with Patricia Ondrovic
KT: What did you do when the South Tower started coming down?
PO: I didn’t know what was happening, but there was a loud “roar” — lots of crashing sounds. I was attempting to put my stretcher back into the vehicle. The ground was shaking and I saw a sea of people, mostly the various agencies on scene, Fire, Police, EMS, all running towards me. I had no idea what they were running from, but I decided I’d be ahead of them and just started running west towards the river. As I was running, parked cars were blowing up and some were on fire, the street was cracking a bit as well. Very shortly after I started running, everything became one big black cloud. I was near the West Side Highway and I couldn’t see around me anymore.
http://killtown.blogspot.com/2006/02/911-rescuer-saw-explosions-inside-wtc.html
Ondrovic Interiew – Buildings WTC 5 and 6 blowing up at the same time as WTC 2 (South Tower)
KT: Can you describe more about how the building blew up on you? Did you feel the shock wave from the explosion and/or debris falling down near you?
PO: Well, one second I was trying to put my stretcher into the ambulance, the next thing I know I am thrown to the ground as the ground was shaking. Debris was flying at me from where the building I was parked in front of. There was a continual loud rumbling, there was just debris flying from every direction and then everything being covered in the black and gray smoke.
KT: Let’s recap real quickly; your ambulance was parked backed up against the WTC 6, near the 6’s corner by the alleyway between the WTC 5 and 6 …
http://killtown.blogspot.com/2006/02/911-rescuer-saw-explosions-inside-wtc.html
Comment
“We start walking back there and then I heard a ground level explosion and I’m like holy shit, and then you heard that twisting metal wreckage again.” [James McKinley — E.M.T. (E.M.S.)]
Comment
When the rescue team reached an area directly in front of Tower Two, Antonio said he’d take over the equipment cart Will had pushed from Building 5. … The team moved ahead. … Suddenly the hallway began to shudder as a terrible deafening roar swept over them. That’s when Will saw the giant fireball explode in the street. [bowhunter.com]
http://www.bowhunter.com/feature_articles/BN_FromTheRubble/
Video – fireball
VIDEO: Wtc2_fireball Dailymotion
His story: He escapes from the South Tower and while he is running away, he is hit by a fireball. He is probably the last person out alive. He says he saw a fireball and heard a loud noise, and that’s all he remembers. He woke up 6 days later in St Vincents.
‘As Ron DiFrancesco ran away [from WTC 2] he was hit by a fireball … he was probably the last person out alive. “I saw the fireball and heard a loud noise. That’s all I remember…”‘
Video – Carol Marin heard a roar and saw the towers explode and a giant ball of flame
VIDEO: 911.wtc.carol.marin Dailymotion
“All of a sudden I heard a roar and I saw one of the towers blow … I saw from street level as though it exploded up, a giant rolling ball of flame…”
Same reporter:
“I hear simultaneously this roar and see what appears to be a gigantic fireball rising up at ground level . . . I remember seeing this giant ball of fire come out of the earth as I heard this roar” [Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11 – P 239]
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0742523160/102-6566811-8060134?v=glance&n=283155
Video – smoke and heat
VIDEO: Wtc1_stairway_hot Dailymotion
Survivor in WTC 1 stairwell during WTC 2 collapse: “…and all of a sudden this huge cloud of dark grey smoke comes shooting up the stairway … and it was hot – very, very hot.”
Video – dust cloud and white plume
VIDEO: Wtc2_smoke Dailymotion
White smoke emerging from the dust cloud of the collapsing WTC 2.
Video – glass, rumbling, wind
VIDEO: 911.wtc.glass.blew.out Dailymotion
“I was standing next to 1 World Trade Center and then all of a sudden I heard rumbling and we all started running away from it. The glass like blew out and threw me onto the sidewalk … and I couldn’t see for like twenty seconds…”
Video: White smoke at the base of WTC1 seconds before its collapse
Video with zoom:
VIDEO: Wtc1_street_level_smoke Dailymotion
Still from the video: white smoke seen at the base of the North Tower before it exploded
Video without zoom:
VIDEO: 911.wtc.1.demolition.nj.1 Dailymotion
Video: smoke rising from the World Trade Center wreckage
VIDEO: Wtc_smoke Dailymotion
Video of smoke rising from the World Trade Center wreckage
The smoke rising from the wreckage should have been black, not white.
The Day America Was Punked 