As a 16-year-old boy, Sumiteru Taniguchi survived the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki. “In the flash of the explosion, I was blown off my bicycle from behind and slapped down against the ground,” he recounted.

When he lifted his head, he saw that the children who had been playing all around him just moments before were now dead.

Despite being almost 2 kilometres from the hypocentre, he suffered severe burns to his back, left arm and left leg. His wounds soon became infected, and he spent almost four years in hospital recovering, including 21 months lying on his stomach.

The pain from his injuries never went away. He devoted much of his life to the cause of abolishing nuclear weapons.