Taken just minutes after the bomb fell, as incomprehensible
horror unfolded below. Honkawa Elementary School In the center
of Hiroshima, in a part of the city totally destroyed by the
explosion and ensuing fires, a long-lost photograph taken
shortly after the blast has been discovered among a collection
of articles about the bombing. The picture is a rare glimpse of
the bomb's immediate aftermath, showing the distinct two-tiered
cloud as it was seen from Kaitaichi, part of present-day Kaita,
six miles east of Hiroshima's center. Reprints of the image did
appear in a 1988 Japanese-language publication, but the
whereabouts of the original were unknown. There are only a
couple of other photos in existence (two, possibly three) that
capture the cloud from the vantage point of the ground; and,
according to the Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun, there is only one
other photograph that provides as clear a picture of the
separated tiers of the cloud, and that is a photo taken from the
Enola Gay as it zipped away. The Asah