France, Aug. 6 -- Bae Kyung-mi was five years old when the Americans dropped "Little Boy", the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.

Like thousands of other ethnic Koreans working in the city at the time, her family kept the horror a secret.

Many feared the stigma from doing menial work for colonial ruler Japan, and false rumours that radiation sickness was contagious.

Bae recalls hearing planes overhead while she was playing at her home in Hiroshima on that day.

Within minutes, she was buried in rubble.

"I told my mum in Japanese, 'Mum! There are airplanes!'" Bae, now 85, told AFP.

She passed out shortly after.

Her home collapsed on top of her, but the debris shielded her from the burns that killed tens of thousan...