Shigeaki Mori, Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor who was embraced by Obama, dies at 88

Shigeaki Mori, a Japanese atomic bomb survivor in Hiroshima and a historian but best known for a big hug he was given by then U.S. President Barack Obama during his historic visit to the city a decade ago, has died. He was 88. Agence France-Presse contributed to this report. In:

Shigeaki Mori, a Japanese atomic bomb survivor in Hiroshima and a historian but best known for a big hug he was given by then U.S. President Barack Obama during his historic visit to the city a decade ago, has died. He was 88.

Born in 1937, Mori was 8 years old when he survived the Aug. 6, 1945 U.S. attack. He was just one and a half miles away from the blast. About 30 years later, he learned a little known fact — that American prisoners of war held in Japan were among those killed by the atomic bomb dropped by their own country.

Working as a full-time company employee, Mori researched U.S. and Japanese official documents and tracked down 12 American POWs. He wrote letters to their bereaved families in the U.S. who didn't know how their loved ones had died.

The U.S. atomic attack on Hiroshima instantly destroyed the city and killed tens of thousands. The death toll by the end of that year was 140,000. A second bomb dropped on Nagasaki killed another 70,000.

Mori authored a book, "The Secret of the American POWs Killed by the Atomic Bomb," published in Japanese in 2008. The book won him a prestigious Kikuchi Kan Prize, and was later translated into English.