Mushroom cloud (A few minutes after detonation)

Mushroom cloud captured a few minutes after the detonation of the atomic bomb; taken about 6.5 kilometers northeast of the hypocenter. According to records held by the United States Armed Forces, the cloud billowed to 9,000 meters in the sky within three minutes of the blast. The photograph was taken by Seiso Yamada, then 17, who was walking to visit Mikumari Gorge in Fuchu-cho, Aki County in Hiroshima Prefecture, with his friends. They were watching a B-29 and a parachute in the sky from the entrance to the gorge when a flash, a rumbling of the ground, and a roar suddenly hit them. Trees in the pine forest around them shook violently from the blast, and a huge mushroom cloud rose rapidly, which he photographed with a Japan-made camera he had brought with him. (The parachute Mr. Yamada saw is believed to have been the blast measurement instrumentation dropped by one of the planes accompanying the Enola Gay.) **Editorial use only, Commercial use not possible**, Credit: Seiso Yamada/Chugoku Shimbun/Kyodo News Images