this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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Yeah, gonna need a source on this one. The streets are clear, there's no fires, seems less like "one night" and more "after an entire campaign of terror bombing". But if you really want to see what the strategic bombing campaigns were capable of, look up the aftermath of cologne. The re were only a handful of buildings that surived, I think in the double digits though I've seen people say it was everything except the cathedral (we didn't bomb that because we were using it to orient the bombing runs).
Japan had a lot more wood-only city buildings back then compared to the colder climate in Europe, where more massive stone architecture was common. In Europe, cellars are also common/default, unlike in Japan.
During high heat firestorms, most of the wooden material burns up and the ash gets carried away. The photo definitely shows cleanup and very likely was not taken the day after the bombing, but a single firestorm definitely can produce these results, much like other examples in Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden, Würzburg,... Except those had much more stone rubble standing afterwards.
Wood, and worse, paper. The US made mock-ups of civilian Japanese buildings when we were testing napalm for use in the terror firebombings of 1945. It was... very effective against the mock-ups.