Only survivor of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki dies

The only person officially recognised as a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings has died aged 93.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi suffered burns when Hiroshima was attacked on 6 August 1945. He returned to his hometown of Nagasaki which was hit three days later. About 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.

In his later years, Mr Yamaguchi gave talks about his experiences as an atomic bomb survivor and often expressed his hope that such weapons would be abolished. "My double radiation exposure can tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings even after I die," he told the Mainichi newspaper last year.

The mayor of Nagasaki today said "a precious storyteller has been lost" in a message on the city's website.

Mr Yamaguchi died of stomach cancer on Monday, a month after he was visited in the hospital by filmmaker James Cameron, director of Titanic and Avatar, who is said to be considering a movie about the bombings.