The Shiroyama National School near the hypocenter, the point where the Nagasaki atomic bomb was dropped and exploded, was hit directly and collapsed, killing many of those exposed. Its schoolyard was littered with white bones from the bodies of indistinguishable Hibakusha.
Shiroyama National School was the closest national school, only about 500 meters west of the hypocenter of the Nagasaki atomic bomb. The rate of damage to the buildings and personnel reached an extreme level. The school consisted of two three-story reinforced concrete buildings, the main building and the old building. The main building sloped westward from the foundation, and the interior of each floor collapsed, with some of the exterior walls of the third floor also destroyed. A fire broke out immediately afterwards, destroying the second and third floors, but the first floor escaped total destruction. The staff room on the first floor of the connecting building between the old and new buildings was the first to catch fire. All the documents and equipment were destroyed, but the fire was confined to the staff room. The damage to the old school building was that the first floor was destroyed inside and part of the second floor and most of the third floor collapsed, but no fire broke out there.
At the time of the explosion of the Nagasaki atomic bomb, there were 33 people in the school: 29 teachers and staff, one of their children, and three office workers on the first floor of the main building. Of these, only three faculty members and one child survived. A total of 29 people died in the bombing: four in the principal's office, one in the staff room, four in the shifts room, two in the janitor's office, 17 in the schoolyard, and one office worker who died while traveling. There were only four survivors: one in the principal's office, two in the doctor's office, and one in the stairwell. Among the 17 who weeded and cleaned sweet potato fields in the schoolyard, there were white bones that could not be identified because they were killed in the bombing.
In addition, the payroll section of the Mitsubishi Weapons Works was evacuated and occupied the second and third floors. About 120 people were at work, including 44 mobilized students from the Nagasaki Economic College, Nagasaki Prefectural Girls' High School, City Commercial School, Girls' Commercial School, and Niongoura High School for Girls. Some of them took turns reinforcing the air-raid shelter at the edge of the schoolyard. Of the 66 students on the third floor, which occupied six classrooms, all died of the bombing, and of the 36 students on the second floor, which occupied five classrooms, 31 died of the bombing and only five survived. Of the 17 people working in the air-raid shelter, 6 died of the bombing and 11 survived, but 2 developed radiation sickness. At Shiroyama National School, 132 out of a total of 152 students died of the atomic bombing. In terms of percentage, immediate deaths due to the bombing accounted for about 40% of the deaths, and deaths from exposure to the bomb at a later date accounted for about 60%. The total number of children enrolled in Shiroyama National School was estimated to be 1,500 due to the burning of the school register, of which about 1,400 died at home, as in the case of Sanri National School. (Record of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing)
