Survivor of Nagasaki bombing hopes Obama's visit brings acknowledgment of victims' pain and suffering

Masako Wada,72, sits at her dining table south of Tokyo surrounded by stacks of neatly organized files.They contain a life's work of documenting the effects of nuclear weapons, her campaigns against them, as well as maps and photos of what her city,Nagasaki, looked like in August 1945 after the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on Japan.

"I was too young to remember those days, so I don't think I can talk about the indescribable sins on that day that other elder hibakusha(survivors)went through, but I was there with my mother and my grandfather."

Wada said she heard her mother, Shizuko Nagae,tell the story of that awful day many times and knows itby heart.Whenshe wasolder, shewrote it down in her mother's words.

During her interview with CBC,Wada reachedfor one of her many files and in a clear, calm voice she began to read her mother's words, describinghow since the familylived nearly threekilometres from the epicentre of the atomic explosionand their home was sheltered by mountains, they were sparedthe worst of the blast.

• ReadShizukoNagae'sharrowing account of the bombing ofNagasaki

"The lot next to my house was an evacuation place," Wada read, quoting her mother."As there was a well in my backyard, people who were severely burned or wounded came one after another for water. Carrying Masako on my back, I took care of countless people by washing their wounds. I don't know what happened to them afterwards."

Number of survivors dwindling

Wada's mother died five years ago at theage of 89.

"She suffered from stomach cancer, liver cancer and various other diseases and had been hospitalized on and off 28 times," Wada said. "She seemed very unsatisfied when she once read this memorandum of mine. Her experience of hell on earth couldn't be described in such words. I assume that other hibakusha would feel the same.

'Two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have left ushibakusha(survivors)and our families in sadness, suffering, pain, distress, anger and anxiety to this day.'- MasakoWada, 72, Nagasaki bombing survivor

"That's why it is very important that those who have experience of war and those who heard about it should pass down these stories from generation to generation. Two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have left us hibakusha and our families in sadness, suffering, pain, distress, anger and anxiety to this day."

Hibakusha is the Japanese term for survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasakiatomic bomb blasts, which killed at least 130,000 people by some estimates and countless others who died from the after-effects of radiation. Those who register as such are eligible to receive special health care from the Japanese government. Wada was in high school when she began to realize that although she was only 22 months old when the bomb was dropped on her city,she was also ahibakusha.

Today, she volunteers for Nihon Hidankyo, Japan's main associationof hibakusha. Their numbers are dwindling, but they still passionately campaign for nuclear disarmament.

• Listen to MasakaWabaread her mother's account

0:01A Nagasaki survivor's story

Masako Wada, 72, reads her mother's harrowing, first-person account of how she survived the atomic bombing of Nagaski on Aug. 9, 1945.

"What is a nuclear deterrent? Why do we have to have the nuclear weapons for the deterrence?" said Wada.

"We have been appealing to the world for no more Hiroshima, no more Nagasaki, no more wars. This has been the nuclear deterrent. Not having more nuclear weapons. The first step to create a world without nuclear weapons and the world without wars is to clearly understand how horrible and how foolish it is to hurt each other and to kill each other."

Actions more important than apology

Wada'sgroup sent a letter to the White House after Barack Obama announced that he would become the first sitting U.S.president since the end of the Second World War to visit Hiroshima, which was bombed three days before Wada's city met the same fate.

"We urge you, as the president of the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon,"the letter reads, "to meet the hibakusha and hear their experiences of the indescribable hell on earth, learn firsthand the damage and aftereffects of the atomic bombingand look at the A-bomb remnants and materials."

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The letter also quotes Obama's 2009 speech in Prague in which he pledged to advocate for a world without nuclear weaponsandurges him to follow through on the promise.

Wada won't be in Hiroshima on Friday to see Obamameetwith Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the city'sPeace Park, but she will be watching the television coverage from home.

"I hope that kind of performance is not the end of the story but the beginning," she said.

When asked about whether there Obama should offeran apology for the bombings, which he explicitly said he would not do,Wada saidactions speak louder than words.

"If Obama did apologize, I am very happy," she said."But what comes next, after [the] apology, that's more important, I think."