Moving towards the plane at a recorded 1,100 feet per my site second. The recording instruments dropped with the bomb radioed blast information back to the other planes. The resulting mushroom cloud remained visible for more than ninety minutes until the three planes were over 400 miles away. The bomb’s blast was created by X-ray-heated air that sent a shockwave in all directions at a velocity greater than the speed of sound. These shockwaves pulverized the buildings, turning their contents into flying shrapnel. Severe structural damage to buildings in Hiroshima extended out for a mile from the epicenter creating a radius of destruction roughly 2 miles in diameter. The second stage set in ten to fifteen days after the bombing. Symptoms included falling hair, diarrhea, and high fevers. Later, blood disorders would appear. Gums would begin bleeding and white-blood-cell counts would drop sharply. Red or purple spots would appear on the body. These forms of petechial sores were caused by broken capillary blood vessels under the skin. The third stage consisted of the reactions that came when the body struggled to compensate for its sickness. Sometimes, white cell counts would not only return to normal, but would increase to much higher than normal levels leading to other fatal complications. Burns would finally begin to heal weeks after the blast, but they would leave behind thick layers of pink, rubbery scar tissue known as keloid tumors. On Aug. 15, 1945, after another nuclear bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to the Allied Forces in a radio address to the Japanese people. The survivors of Hiroshima worked tirelessly to begin rebuilding their city, but most of their time was spent collecting dead bodies for cremation and searching for survivors. By October, Allied occupation troops arrived near Hiroshima to perform radiological surveys and gather data on the power of the bomb. Their mission did not include the cleanup or any radiological decontamination of the city although some of the troops did engage in cleanup operations, including the disposing of bodies. The rebuilding of Hiroshima gained momentum in 1949 with the passing of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law. It provided financial assistance for reconstruction from the national government along with land donated by the government that had previously been used for military purposes. A common rumor after the dropping of the bomb was that nothing internet