> then i questioned a great many people who were inside such buildings when the bomb exploded. their descriptions match the scores of accounts i had heard from people caught in concrete buildings and areas hit by blockbusters. hiroshima's 10 - story press building, about three blocks from the center of the explosion, was badly gutted by the fire following the explosion, but otherwise unheard. the people caught in the building did not suffer any unusual effects. > most of the window panels are blown out of the hiroshima hospital, about a mile from the heart of the explosion. because there were no wooden structures nearby, however, it escaped fire. the people inside the hospital were not seriously affected by the blast. in general the effects were analogous to those produced by the blast of a distant tnt bomb. > in nagasaki, concrete buildings were gutted by fire but we're still standing upright. > all of downtown nagasaki, though chiefly wouldn't in construction, survived practically undamaged. it was explained that apparently it had been shielded from the explosion by the intervening hills. but another part of nagasaki, and a straight, unimpeded line from the explosion center and not protected by the hills, also escape serious damage. the nagasaki blast had virtually dissipated itself by the time it reached this area. few houses collapsed and none caught fire. > all destruction in nagasaki has been popularly credited to the atom bomb. actually, the city had been heavily bombed 6 days before. the famous mitsubishi plant was badly punished by eight high - explosive direct hits. - major alexander p. de seversky 'atomic bomb hysteria', by major alexander p. de seversky february 1946 reader's digest, pages 121 to 126  
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