Charles Sweeney
Poor bombing visibility and an increasingly critical fuel shortage eventually forced "Bockscar" to divert from Kokura and attack the secondary target, Nagasaki. As they approached Nagasaki, the heart of the city's downtown was covered by dense cloud, and Sweeney and the plane's weaponeer, Commander Ashworth, initially decided to bomb Nagasaki using radar. However, a small opening in the clouds allowed "Bockscar's" bombardier to verify the target as Nagasaki. As the crew had been ordered to drop the bomb visually if possible, Sweeney decided to proceed with a visual bomb run. "Bockscar" then dropped "Fat Man", with a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT. It exploded 43 seconds later at above the ground, at least northwest of the planned aim point. The failure to drop "Fat Man" at the precise bomb aim point caused the atomic blast to be confined to the Urakami Valley. As a consequence, a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills, and only 60% of Nagasaki was destroyed. The bombing also severed the Mitsubishi arms production extensively and killed an estimated 35,000-40,000 people outright, including 23,200-28,200 Japanese industrial workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese soldiers.
Environmental impact of war
After four years of World War II in August 1945, the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima in Japan. About 70,000 people died in nine seconds at the bombing in Hiroshima, which was comparable to that of the devastating Operation Meetinghouse air raid over Tokyo. Three days after the bombing in Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on the industrial city of Nagasaki, killing 35,000.The nuclear weapon released a catastrophic load of energy. The temperature once the bombs were blasted reached about 7200°F. With temperature that high, all the flora and fauna are destroyed along with the infrastructure and human life in the impact zone. When the atomic bomb was dropped, it released enormous quantity of energy and radioactive particles. The radioactive particles released contaminated the land and water for miles. The initial blast increased the surface temperature, along with the crushing winds caused by the initial blast, trees and buildings in the path were all destroyed.