The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more than 100,000 Japanese civilians, poisoned a generation of survivors and ushered in a precarious era of nuclear war.

On the 80th anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, survivors continue searching for remains and healing—and Americans remain divided over whether the bombings were justified.

U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. An early newspaper account said “the obliterating blast” had “destroyed 60 per cent of the Japanese city.” “Practically all living things — human and animal — were ‘literally seared to death’ by the new weapon loosed against the industrial and military city,