Obituary: Kanji Kuramoto

Kanji Kuramoto, honorary president of the 800-member Committee of A-Bomb Survivors in the United States, died Monday of heart failure at a hospital in Oakland, Calif. He was 78.

Kuramoto, a sansei from Hawaii and the founder of the committee, devoted his life to survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki living abroad to press the Japanese government to offer them assistance, as they are ineligible for support offered to A-bomb survivors in Japan under a Japanese law.

He was also involved in publicizing the horrors of the A-bomb in the United States.

Born in Hawaii in 1926, Kuramoto went to Japan for his education at age 5.

He entered Hiroshima from neighboring Yamaguchi Prefecture three days after the bomb was dropped on the city on Aug. 6, 1945, to search for his father, who lived there. His father was later confirmed dead.

His experience of witnessing the devastation caused by the bomb in Hiroshima became the driving force in his activities to help survivors and in establishing the committee in Los Angeles where he went after the war, his family said.