On Aug. 9, 1945, 6-year-old Chiyoko Motomura was playing on a veranda at her family's Nagasaki, Japan, home. Her mother, aunt and grandfather were weeding the rice fields while her grandmother was preparing lunch when they heard a lightning-like crack.

"Bachiiiiing!" Motomura, now 86, said through a translated PowerPoint presentation at the University of New Mexico's Zimmerman Library on Wednesday. "A bright flash of light exploded in front of my eyes ... and with a loud thud my small body was slammed into the garden."

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