Here's what Hiroshima looks like today, 81 years after the atomic bomb

The Atomic Bomb Dome is one of the few surviving structures after the detonation. Irina WS/Shutterstock Eighty-one years after the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the city has transformed. The bombing immediately killed 80,000 people and destroyed 70% of the city's buildings. Today, Hiroshima is a bustling manufacturing hub with a population of 1.1 million people. On August 6, 1945, during World War II, the US bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in military combat on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The Allied forces dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki three days later. Less than a week later, Japan surrendered. The device that exploded over Hiroshima destroyed about two-thirds of the city’s structures in a blinding flash of light. At the time, Hiroshima’s population was about 300,000, the Atomic Heritage Foundation reported.