A-bomb survivors create computer image of bombed town
HIROSHIMA, July 31 Kyodo - A group composed
of former residents of a town in Hiroshima
who survived the atomic bombing of the western
Japan city during World War II on Monday
unveiled a computer-generated video showing
images of the town prior to the attack.
A memorial service for town residents and
others in neighboring vicinities who died
in the bombing featured the three-minute
computer-generated video of Sarugaku town,
situated north of the city's Atomic Bomb
Dome, organizers said.
The video shows images of the main streets
of Sarugaku from 1943 to 1944 and its grocery
stores on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, when
the U.S. dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. A
second one was dropped three days later on
Nagasaki.
Group member Masaaki Tanabe, 62, said that
over the past two years he visited about
60 preserved sites throughout the country
including those in the cities of Kanazawa
and Kyoto, mainly to gather information on
homes built from the Meiji period (1868-1912)
to the early part of the Showa period (1926-1989).
Tanabe, who manages an audio-visual production
company, also said he is set to recreate
by August next year images of the town streets
and about 50 houses, of which 10 will have
their interiors recreated as well.
He added that he plans to show these images
on a Web site for free access, by coupling
these images with the survivors' testimonies.
For Tanabe, who experienced the bombing at
age 7, he felt the need to recreate the town
in some form to keep the memory of the community
alive in the minds of people.
''By depicting a town full of life at the
time, I would like to convey a message of
the tragedy and cruelty of atomic weapons,''
he said.
==Kyodo
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