Hiroshima returned the ashes of an atomic bomb victim to his family on Wednesday, after a clerical error in the city's register of the dead left the remains unclaimed. The ashes belong to Toshiaki Wakamoto, who was 13 when he died in the bombing.
His sister, Shigeko Miyoshi, 91, received them at the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound in Peace Memorial Park in Naka Ward. "More than happy, I am just sad," she said.
The city found the error this year when it carried out its first full check of the bone urns inside the mound in about 40 years. The register listed the name as Ishimoto. An envelope stored with the ashes carried the character 若, whose grass radical had been hidden by a fold in the paper, the city found.
After Hiroshima published the corrected name, Miyoshi came forward and asked whether the remains might be her brother. Last month the city confirmed the identification using copies of the family register and other documents.
Wakamoto left his dormitory on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, and was never seen again, according to Miyoshi. She recalled their mother walking the city searching for him. "If it had been a little sooner, I think how glad our mother would have been, and that is a shame, but I am grateful," she said, her voice catching.
The family will place the ashes in the same grave as their mother.
37 more records corrected
The recheck found 37 other records with wrong names, addresses or other details, all of which the city has corrected. The number of identified remains with no one to claim them now stands at 812, and the city is asking the public for information that could lead to their families.