The Luckiest Guy in the World Dies, Aged 93

So, there's this guy who one fine morning, while on a business trip, happens upon a veritable cataclism. A blinding flash of light, an explosion that sounded as if the gates of Hell had just been thrown wide open, and clouds of dust that would kill you, either instantly or, worse still, painfully over a matter of days. What the hell had just happened?, our guy asked himself. Is this the end of the world?

It might as well have been. The date was August 6th, 1945. The city was Hiroshima, and it had just been attacked by the Americans. With an atomic bomb.

Realising things were about to get ugly, our guy, whose name is Tsutomu Yamaguchi, decided to get the hell out of that place, and head home.

By the way, home happened to be... Nagasaki.

The day after he made it back, the Americans dropped their second atomic bomb, and I'm sure by now Tsutomu was starting to get convinced that the US Army had a personal vendetta against him.

Whatever else happened, Tsutomu can lawfully claim to be the only survivor of two atomic explosions. He might be called unlucky - after all, he had first row seats for two of the 20th century greatest disasters.

I prefer to call him the luckiest man in the world. Yes, he was badly burned, was twice irradiated by nuclear fallout, and was witness to horrors that would drive most of us mental. But he survived, raised a family, became an antin-nuclear activist, and led a long life, passing away only recently. A detailed article by the BBC can be read here. The best part was that his story, as told by himself, is fantastic and horrifying at the same time - and absolutely real. Above all, it is as loud a plea for world peace as there has been.

He is quoted as saying: "It was my destiny that I experienced this twice and I am still alive to convey what happened."

Indeed, in the words of Nagasaki's mayor, a precious storyteller has been lost.