Hibakusha

Hibakusha (çibaꜜkɯ̥ɕa or çibakɯ̥ꜜɕa; 被爆者 or 被曝者; "survivor of the bomb" or "person affected by exposure [to radioactivity]") is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. The word hibakusha is Japanese, originally written in kanji. While the term Hibakusha 被爆者 (hi 被 "affected" + baku 爆 "bomb" + sha 者 "person") has been used before in Japanese to designate any victim of bombs, its worldwide democratization led to a definition concerning the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped in Japan by the United States Army Air Forces on the 6 and 9 August 1945. Anti-nuclear movements and associations, among others of hibakusha, spread the term to designate any direct victim of nuclear disaster, including the ones of the nuclear plant in Fukushima. They, therefore, prefer the writing 被曝者 (substituting baku 爆 "bomb" with the homophonous 曝 "exposition") or "person affected by the exposition", implying "person affected by nuclear exposure". This definition tends to be adopted since 2011. The juridic status of hibakusha is allocated to certain people, mainly by the Japanese government. The Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law defines hibakusha as people who fall into one or more of the following categories: within a few kilometers of the hypocenters of the bombs; within 2 km of the hypocenters within two weeks of the bombings; exposed to radiation from fallout; or not yet born but carried by pregnant women in any of these categories. The Japanese government has recognized about 650,000 people as hibakusha. , 113,649 were still alive, mostly in Japan. The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation. Hibakusha are entitled to government support. They receive a certain amount of allowance per month, and the ones certified as suffering from bomb-related diseases receive a special medical allowance. The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the hibakusha who are known to have died since the bombings.