A rare photograph has been discovered in the Japanese city of Hiroshima showing the mushroom cloud from the US atomic bombing of the city in two distinct parts.

A curator at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum said on Wednesday that the black-and-white picture was found among articles related to the nuclear bombing of the city during the World War II, which were owned by Hiroshima’s Honkawa Elementary School, AFP reported.

It is believed that the picture had been taken half-an-hour after the incident took place on August 6, 1945, about 10 kilometers east of the hypocenter, the curator said.

"The existence of this shot was always known in history books, but this is the first time that the actual print has been discovered," she also said.

"A shot showing the mushroom cloud split into two like this is very rare," she added.

The US B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb, known as “Little Boy”, with about 64kg of uranium-235, on the city. The bomb missed its aiming point, a T-shaped Aioi Bridge, and detonated over a surgical clinic, creating an explosion equivalent to 16 kilotons of TNT.

An estimated 140,000 people were killed instantly or gradually from radiation sickness and cancers in the city, with Japanese sources saying 90 percent of the city’s doctors and 93 percent of the nurses were killed or injured in the bombing.

Japanese officials also said that 70 percent of buildings were destroyed and another 10 percent damaged.

Three days later, US aircraft dropped another atomic bomb named as “Fat Man” on Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000.

Source: PressTV