Digital Observer has a fascinating account of a lost suitcase (not Mexican this time) full of images showing the devastating effects of the 06 August 1945 Hiroshima bomb.

The photographs, discovered amidst a pile of rubbish by Don Levy in 2000, have now been identified as having belonged to Lt. Robert L Corsbie, a US Navy officer and a member of the Physical Damage Division set up by the US Army to document the effects of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

'When I opened the suitcase that night I knew what I was looking at almost right away,' Levy told Digital Observer. 'I felt pleased to have found them but at the same time I was saddened by what I was looking at.'

'We see death and disaster all over TV but these photographs are different, maybe because they are physical objects' Levitt said. 'They don’t represent the horror, exactly, because there are no bodies. They’re clinical. But the power of them is really intense. Why is that? I think it’s because I can’t help but place myself behind the lens. What was that guy feeling when he took the photos? He was clicking and whirling, clicking and whirling. These photographs seem real, connected to the event. They have a power in them. I never would have thrown away that suitcase on purpose.'

The 701 images, date back to the weeks following the US attack, and after some investigation it has emerged that they had been accidentally thrown out by Marc Levitt, who had acquired them from a friend in 1972.

Adam Levy’s (no relation) interview with Don Levy can be read in full here.