Number of Hibakusha Drops to 91,100

Tokyo, July 1 (Jiji Press)--The number of hibakusha survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had fallen to 91,105 as of the end of March this year, Japan's welfare ministry said Wednesday.

The number of hibakusha with victim certificates declined by 8,025 from a year before, when the total stood below 100,000 for the first time, at 99,130, according to the ministry.

The average age of hibakusha rose to 86.66 from 86.13.

The latest total included 33,232 in the western Japan city of Hiroshima and 15,582 in the southwestern Japan city of Nagasaki. Hiroshima was devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, in the closing days of World War II. Nagasaki suffered the same fate three days later.

Aside from Hiroshima and Nagasaki prefectures, Tokyo, the western prefecture of Osaka and the southwestern prefecture of Fukuoka had many hibakusha.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]