NAGASAKI, Japan, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Tsutomu Yamaguchi, survivor of both the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has died of stomach cancer at age 93, his daughter said.
Yamaguchi, the only officially recognized survivor of both the blasts, which led to the surrender of Japan in World War II, died Monday in Nagasaki, The New York Times reported.
Yamaguchi, an engineer, had been on a business trip to Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, the report said. The first atomic bomb exploded over the city as he was getting off a streetcar less than two miles from ground zero, the report said quoting Yamaguchi's interviews in the years since.
The blast, which killed about 80,000 people, ruptured Yamaguchi's eardrums and burned his upper torso, the report said. He spent the night in a Hiroshima bomb shelter before returning to Nagasaki the next day.
Nagasaki was bombed on Aug. 9. Yamaguchi was in his office recounting the Hiroshima bombing to his boss when "suddenly the same white light filled the room," he told the Independent newspaper last March.
"I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima," he was quoted as saying.
After recovering, Yamaguchi went to work for the American occupation forces, became a teacher and eventually returned to work at Mitsubishi, the Times reported. His daughter said he was in good health for most of his life.
She said her mother, who died last year from kidney and liver cancers, had been "soaked in black rain and was poisoned" by the fallout from the Nagasaki blast which killed 70,000 people. She said her brother died of cancer at age 59 and her sister has been chronically ill throughout her life.
