The man who survived the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 has succumbed to stomach cancer, his family says.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi, 93, the only person officially recognised as a survivor of the two attacks, died on Monday at a hospital in Nagasaki.

"I thanked my father for leaving us with the treasure that was his effort to call for world peace," his daughter Toshiko Yamasaki said.

Mr Yamaguchi is survived by a son, two daughters and five grandchildren.

"It is to our regret that we have lost a valuable storyteller," Nagasaki mayor Tomihisa Taue said in a statement.

"His painful experience of being bombed twice in Hiroshima and Nagasaki drew worldwide attention."

Mr Yamaguchi, then an engineer at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard in Nagasaki, was exposed to the first atomic blast in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, when he was there for a work assignment.

He was on a street about two kilometres from ground zero.

With severe burns to his arms, he returned to Nagasaki two days later to join his family and reported for work.

But as he was telling his employers about the Hiroshima holocaust, the second atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki. This time Mr Yamaguchi was about three kilometres from the epicentre.

"I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me there," he said later.

The atomic blasts killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 others in Nagasaki, leaving numerous others with ailments linked to radioactive irradiation.

Calls for peace

Mr Yamaguchi started to publicly talk about his atomic bomb experience only in 2005 when he lost his second son - who survived the Nagasaki bombing as an infant - to cancer.

In 2006, he was featured in a documentary film, entitled Niju Hibaku (double irradiation) with seven others who were known to have survived the two attacks.

The documentary was screened at the United Nations headquarters in New York the same year, featuring Mr Yamaguchi as a guest speaker.

He became the only person officially recognised as a double A-bomb survivor last year when the city of Nagasaki acknowledged he was also bombed in Hiroshima.

Mr Yamaguchi was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2006 and he was taken to hospital last August.

"I think this will be my last lecture. I hope the baton will be passed to other people," Mr Yamaguchi told a seminar in Nagasaki last June, according to media reports.

On December 22, US director James Cameron of the Titanic and Avatar fame called on him to outline his idea of shooting a film on atomic bombs, his daughter said.

"My father had eagerly waited for the director to come. He seemed to gather strength after the meeting," Ms Yamasaki said.

"He was heard saying, 'My mission is over'."

- AFP