Some 80 years ago on August 6, 1945, the world's first nuclear attack took place. The target was the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them civilians, perished in an instant. Many more died in the following months of related injuries and the effects of radiation fallout. The city was devastated, with experts predicting that nothing could grow in the contaminated environment for 70 years. And yet just 12 months later, lush green weeds began appearing in the rubble. Later, flowers burst forth from the debris, vivid oleanders that left the experts confounded.
So, how did nature defy the odds to bring life back into a poisoned and broken city? Click through this gallery and find out how a flower triumphed over catastrophe.