The torii that survived the atomic bomb

After you visit the Hiroshima Castle, you can also visit the Gokoku Shrine, located right on the castle grounds. In 1945, when the atomic blast struck Hiroshima, the Gokoku Shrine was located less that 1 kilometer away from the explosion hypocenter. Because it was so close and the blast came almost vertically, one of the shrine's 3 torii gates, the one from the main entrance, survived almost undamaged. A photo famous all over the world, taken by Shigeo Hayashi in the aftermath of the atomic blast, presents this torii from Gokoku Shrine still standing (Shigeo Hayashi was one of the two photographers assigned by the Special Committee for the Investigation of A-bomb Damage to photograph the city after the disaster).

The shrine was rebuilt in 1965 and the today's torii is a replica, the location was also changed a bit, but the two koma inu statues and the stone lanterns are the original ones...