Hiroshima Survivors Sue Japanese Government for Health Coverage Eligibility

Survivors of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing are preparing a class action lawsuit against the Japanese government, insisting that it expands the area in which victims are eligible for health coverage.

Hiroshima survivors are filing a class action lawsuit against the Japanese government, demanding that it expands health coverage for people exposed to fallout after the 1945 nuclear bombing, Japanese daily Mainichi reported.

The survivors, who are not currently receiving assistance under the country's Atomic Bomb Survivors' Assistance Law, have been impacted by so-called black rain. Following the nuclear bomb's explosion, the mixing of radioactive particles with carbon residue from resulting firestorms led to rainfall in surrounding areas. The rain which reached the ground was a dangerously radioactive, sticky, black substance that became known as black rain.

Wall with Black Rain Marks (3.7km): 30 minutes after the explosion, black rain started to fall in downtown and northwestern suburbs. As it was highly radioactive, damage was extended

© Flickr / Juan Manuel Caicedo Carvajal

So far, 46 people have indicated that they will join the lawsuit, which aims to expand the area officially designated as exposed to black rain to six times what it is today.

In 2012, the Japanese government announced that the request to expand the coverage area was "scientifically groundless" and would not grant people exposed to black rain "Category 3" status which means that they were exposed to radiation and would be granted free medical checkups.

On August 6, 1945, in the concluding weeks of World War II, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, killing 80,000 people in the blast and resulting firestorm, and tens of thousands more from resulting injuries. On August 9, 1945 the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb in Nagasaki, killing another 80,000 people. Hundreds of thousands more were impacted by radiation, and later designated as survivors of the bombing by the Japanese government. As of March 2014, the Japanese government recognized 192,719 people as "hibakusha," Japanese for "explosion-affected people."

The History of the Atomic Bomb Project

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