Qualla: Aioi Bridge

Aioi Bridge: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 中国電気通信局, Public domain. From 31,000 feet, the bombardier of the Enola Gay needed a visual target. He found it in the shape of the letter T. The Aioi Bridge, built in 1932 where the Honkawa and Motoyasu rivers diverge, was unlike any other bridge in Hiroshima -- two spans meeting at a right angle, forming a distinctive three-way junction that was unmistakable from altitude. Its shape, combined with its location near the city center, made it the designated aiming point for the atomic bomb dropped on August 6, 1945. The bomb missed the bridge by 240 meters, detonating over the Shima Hospital instead. The bridge survived. The city around it did not.

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Image: 中国電気通信局 | Public domain

Aioi Bridge: The Bridge That Was Chosen

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit そらみみ (Soramimi), CC BY-SA 4.0. The Aioi Bridge was designed for a practical purpose: to carry streetcar lines across the branching rivers of Hiroshima's delta. Its T-shape solved the engineering problem of connecting three landmasses at a single junction -- the main east-west span crossed the Ota River while a...

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Image: そらみみ (Soramimi) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Aioi Bridge: August 6, 1945

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FlyingToaster, CC BY 3.0. The bomb detonated 580 meters above the city, about 240 meters southeast of the bridge. The blast did not destroy the Aioi Bridge, but it inflicted severe damage. A survivor later described watching the bridge lift several meters into the air before settling back down onto its fo...

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Image: FlyingToaster | CC BY 3.0

Aioi Bridge: Rebuilt to Remember

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit そらみみ, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the war, the damaged Aioi Bridge was repaired and returned to service. For nearly four decades, Hiroshima's streetcars rattled across the same span that had guided the bomb. In 1983, the original bridge was replaced with a new structure built to a similar T-shaped specifica...

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Image: そらみみ | CC BY-SA 4.0

Aioi Bridge: The Shape That Endures

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit そらみみ, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today the Aioi Bridge carries National Route 183 and the Hiroshima Electric Railway Main Line across the Ota River. Its specifications are precisely documented: 123.35 meters long, 41 meters wide, a four-span continuous steel girder bridge completed in 1983. The connecting bridge...

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Image: そらみみ | CC BY-SA 3.0