Hiroshima, Nov. 4 (Jiji Press)–The western Japan city of Hiroshima on Wednesday returned the remains of an atomic bomb victim to a bereaved family member, marking the city’s first such return after an error in official records concerning the victim’s name was discovered. The returned remains were those of Toshiaki Wakamoto and had been kept at the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. After observing a moment of silence in front of the memorial mound, Wakamoto’s younger sister, Shigeko Miyoshi, 91, received the remains at the underground vault. “Rather than feeling happy, I just feel deeply sad,” Miyoshi said. “If my brother had been found a little sooner, I can only imagine how happy our late mother would have been.” Wakamoto died at the age of 13 in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, in the closing days of World War II. “Every year, when Aug. 6 came around, my mother would feel pain in her chest and call out my brother’s name. It was painful for me to watch her,” Miyoshi said. The memorial mound holds the remains of roughly 70,000 atomic bomb victims. Between February and March this year, the Hiroshima city government conducted a comprehensive inspection of 813 urns containing remains for which the victims’ names were known but their living relatives had not been found, uncovering errors in the recorded names or ages of 37 people. An envelope containing Wakamoto’s remains bore the name “Toshiaki Wakamoto,” but because part of the name was written across a fold in the envelope, it was mistakenly recorded in the official registry as “Toshiaki Ishimoto.” The inspection also confirmed that locks of the victims’ hair were preserved with 52 sets of remains. The city has released the victims’ names and appealed to the public for information, but no inquiries have been received so far. Late last year, the identity of one victim was established for the first time through DNA analysis of preserved hair. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
