Tsutomu Yamaguchi
Tsutomu Yamaguchi (16 March 1916 – 4 January 2010) was a Japanese marine engineer who survived both atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. He is the only person officially recognized by the Japanese government as having survived both explosions.
Born in Nagasaki, he worked for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In 1945 he was in Hiroshima on a business trip when the city was bombed on 6 August. He returned to Nagasaki the next day and, while describing the Hiroshima blast to his supervisor on 9 August, the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
Yamaguchi was wounded in Hiroshima—his eardrums were ruptured and he suffered burns and temporary blindness—but he recovered. In Nagasaki he received treatment and went back to work. He later faced health problems related to radiation exposure.
He and his wife Hisako (died 2008), who was also a Nagasaki hibakusha, had three children. Yamaguchi was officially recognized as a hibakusha of Nagasaki in 1957, and in March 2009 the government also recognized him as a survivor of Hiroshima, making him the only person officially acknowledged as having survived both bombings.
In later life he spoke out against nuclear weapons, wrote a memoir and poetry, and appeared in a 2006 documentary about double survivors. He died of stomach cancer in Nagasaki in 2010 at age 93.
His story gained renewed attention when the BBC comedy show QI broadcast a segment joking about him in 2010, which drew criticism from Japan.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 07:53 (CET).