80 years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: atomic tragedy. A brief analytical review of available archival documents and current research in the field of retrospective dosimetry

In August 2025 it is 80 years since the USA Armed Forces used nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki cities, Japan. The atomic bombardments resulted in hundred thousands fatalities among the civilians. The atomic energy was used for the mass physical and radiological destruction. The atomic tragedy marked the beginning of a new era in the history of Mankind – the era of nuclear weapons. Available archival documents testifying the circumstances and consequences of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cited in the paper. There are several factors capable to kill everybody at the epicenter of nuclear explosion and around, specifically an incinerating high-temperature flash, a destructive blast wave, high levels of ionizing radiation. The radiological consequences of the atomic tragedy are still being studied and discussed. In 1986 and 2002, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF, Japan) published the Dosimetry Systems, DS86 and DS02, for assessing the effects of the atomic bombings. These systems paid little attention to the peculiarities of internal dose formation from residual radioactivity. Modern methods of retrospective dosimetry can be useful for assessment of radiological consequences of exposure in those people, who were not in city at the time of bombardments of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and were not irradiated immediately at the moment of explosion, but arrived to the city soon after the bombardment and were exposed to external and internal irradiation from the residual radioactivity. The paper referred to the current studies on retrospective dosimetry methods’ application for assessing the contribution to radiation dose of residual radioactivity following the atomic bombing. Dosimetry aspects of experimental studies on radiobiological peculiarities of internal irradiation by microparticles with neutron-activated short-lived radionuclides 56Mn and 31Si, contained in the residual radioactivity from atomic explosions, are mentioned as well. These joint studies are conducted in a framework of international collaboration between research centers in Russia, Japan, and Kazakhstan.