Staff of Hiroshima Electric Railway Co. show live footage of the inside of a streetcar that survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima shot through a smartphone on Feb. 16 in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward. (Jun Ueda)
Streetcar No. 651, survivor of Hiroshima s atomic bombing, rumbled through the city s streets on a recent morning, taking elementary school students on a virtual tour.
The streetcar was running within 700 meters of the blast center of the atomic bomb that U.S. forces dropped on the city on Aug. 6, 1945. Though badly damaged by the blast, it still carries passengers in Hiroshima today after being repaired.
Their annual school trip to Hiroshima canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 157 sixth-graders at Asukano Elementary School in Ikoma, Nara Prefecture, watched the tour unfold as it streamed live on video over the internet on Feb. 16.