When Sunao Tsuboi reported the horrors of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, it was from the experience of someone who had already told his own story hundreds or thousands of times.

Smoothly polished and distant like some of the Hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bomb, but his story of horror did not work.

Tsuboi spoke hesitantly, often hesitating, and it was obvious that decades later the memory still hurt him deeply.

Despite the horror, however, he had retained his sense of humor.

Patrick Welter

Correspondent for business and politics in Japan, based in Tokyo.

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Tsuboi was 20 years old when the American atomic bomb exploded on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killing around 140,000 people.

The student was on his way to university when the atom bomb fell.

About 1.2 kilometers from the bomber's hypocenter, he survived with severe burns all over his body, marked for life.

"I have never forgotten the flash of the explosion," he said six years ago in an interview with journalists.

Then he described one of the experiences that had particularly touched him. Hours after the explosion, he was rescued by an army truck. But the soldiers sent one girl away because they were only interested in young men who might still have been sent to war. “Weeping, the girl went towards the fire. I couldn't do anything. Until I die, this pain won't leave me, "said Tsuboi.

The experience of the atomic bomb, but also the horror of the militarized society at the time, made Tsuboi a staunch fighter against nuclear weapons. He only worked as a teacher after the war. Many years later he was chairman of the highest association of atomic bomb victims in Japan to campaign for the rights of the Hibakusha. Tsuboi traveled the world with the message of the abolition of all nuclear weapons. When Barack Obama was the first incumbent American President to visit the memorial in Hiroshima in 2016, it was Tsuboi who was allowed to shake hands and have a few words with him after the ceremony. Today there are still almost 128,000 people in Japan who survived the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It was only on Wednesday that it became known in Japan that Tsuboi had died on Sunday at the age of 96.

It was the first report on the evening news on television.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose family comes from Hiroshima and has his constituency there, remembered him on Twitter.

"Mr. Tsuboi helped our goal to achieve a world without nuclear weapons," wrote Kishida. Many of the Hibakusha, however, also criticize Kishida for not signing the treaty banning all nuclear weapons.