Recent reports show that the ruin of Japan’s Hiroshima city is getting more tourists now more than ever.
According to The Japan Times foreign tourists visits to the atomic bombed city have reached a record high in 2013 with 200,086 visitors.
Interestingly, 70 years after the city was bombed by the US military, which ended the World War II, Hiroshima is becoming popular in a very good way.
Local officials confirm that there are more tourists visiting the ghost town to study the remnants of the place. There, researchers can study the burnt wreckage, the painful testimonials of those who survived, and even see the human shadows that are left permanent in the concretes when the atomic bomb consumed the city.
Most people consider Hiroshima as a gritty and despairing example of “battlefield tourism,” “grief tourism,” or “dark tourism.” Other forms of this type of tourism include the Nazi concentration camps, the killing fields of Cambodia, and Ground Zero of 9/11.
Tourists give a silent and reflective gaze on the terrific sight of the Genbaku Dome of Hiroshima. This place became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. This structure was designed by a Czech architect back in 1915 as the Industrial Promotional Hall of Hiroshima.
This building is the ground zero when the atomic bomb was dropped by the US military in August 6, 1945.
The foreign tourists who visit Hiroshima are composed of Americans, which comprise the majority of the visitors, followed by Australians and the Chinese. There are also plenty of Japanese people visiting the site. According to reports, word-of-mouth is the main promotional medium that brings in countless of tourists to the place. This type of promotion brings in more mystery and wonder to the people who want to visit the place.
The atomic bomb instantly killed 60,000 to 80,000 people in a radius of 10-square kilometres, while the radiation poisoned others raising the death toll to 135,000 people.
