TOKYO: Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor Shigeaki Mori, who was hugged by former US president Barack Obama during his historic visit to the city a decade ago, has died at 88, local media reported on Tuesday.

The emotional embrace between Obama and Mori, who was eight years old when the United States dropped the bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, was broadcast worldwide.

The Asahi Shimbun and other local media reported that Mori died aged 88 at a hospital in the city on Saturday.

Mori, known for his study of the fate of US prisoners of war who were in Hiroshima, was thrown into a river by the force of the huge blast on August 6, 1945.

“I crawled up out of the water and saw a woman tottering toward me,” Mori said before meeting Obama at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in 2016.

“Blood was everywhere on her body, and internal organs hung from her abdomen,” he recalled. “While holding them, she asked me where she could find a hospital. Crying, I ran away, leaving her alone,” he said.

“People who were still alive were collapsed all around me. I escaped by stamping on their faces and heads. I heard screams from a broken down house. But I ran away as I was still a child with no power to help.” In 2016, Obama became the fist sitting US president to visit the city and paid a moving tribute to victims of the first atomic bomb used in war.

Mori appeared overwhelmed with emotion as he shook hands with him. “The president gestured as if he was going to give me a hug, so we hugged,” Mori told reporters afterwards.

Around 140,000 people died in the bo­­mbing of Hiroshima, a toll that includes th­­­­ose who survived the explosion but died soon after from radiation exposure.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2026