In Pictures: Hiroshima – Before the Bomb, and 70 Years After

12 pictures that tell you the story surrounding the ghastly atomic bombing on Hiroshima in 1945.

Last month, with a bunch of black-and-white archival photos in hand, Associated Press’s Eugene Hoshiko set out to document how Hiroshima had changed, 70 years after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city.

Hoshiko grew up in Yokohama, and had never been to this western Japanese city before.

He imagined the same intense heat, even in the morning, had greeted people headed to work on the morning of Aug 6, 1945.

At 8:15 am, still 2,000 feet above the ground, the falling bomb detonated, forever changing their lives. About 90% of the city was destroyed, which is why it looks so new today.

An estimated 140,000 people died in a city of 350,000, including those who succumbed to severe radiation exposure through the end of 1945.

The streetcars are packed again. The stark wasteland seen in the black-and-white photos taken soon after the bombing is but a memory. The remains of one building stand on a river bank, in the same place as it did 70 years ago.

The Atomic Bomb Dome, now a UN World Heritage Site, has become the iconic image of Hiroshima.

A young couple passed by the dome, hand-in-hand. Before the atomic bomb, did many couples walk by like them?