Sakae Bridge, Road bridge and A-bombed building in Hiroshima, Japan

Sakae Bridge is a road bridge over the Kyobashi River in Hiroshima, on Hiroshima city road route Minami 1-ku line 6. Its current reinforced-concrete deck, built in 1930, rests on seven piers and two abutments; the sidewalks were widened in 1971, replacing the original stone railings with steel ones.

A wooden bridge was built here in March 1906 by Kumagai Eijirō, who gave the bridge one character of his name. After a storm destroyed it in June 1928, it was rebuilt in reinforced concrete in October 1930. On 6 August 1945, the atomic bomb exploded about 1.51 km away; the blast blew away the bridge's railings and a telephone box at its foot, but because the bridge lay in the direction of the blast, it did not collapse and suffered little damage. It was used as an evacuation route to the East Drill Ground, then a relief station, and is described in Hara Tamiki's novel Summer Flowers.

The name comes from Kumagai Eijirō, who built the first wooden bridge here in March 1906, taking one character from his given name. In the late 1920s and 1930s the bridge hosted schoolchildren's swimming races, and it is called the birthplace of competitive swimming in Hiroshima. Kawahigashi Renya's novel Natsu no Hana describes the bridge just after the 1945 bombing.

Sakae Bridge carries Hiroshima city road Minami 1-ku line 6 over the Kyobashi River, linking the JR Hiroshima Station area with the city centre; the east-bank junction meets Johoku-dori (Hiroshima Prefectural Route 37). The riverside greenway on the right bank continues downstream toward Kyobashi, with about twenty stone boat-landing steps (gangi) spaced roughly 20 m apart. The west-bank lane behind Noboricho Junior High School, beside Shukkeien garden, is a dead end.

Sakae Bridge is the only one of Hiroshima's surviving A-bombed bridges to have been widened: the walkways were extended in 1971, replacing the original stone parapets with steel ones. The 1930 concrete spans and piers, plus the brick-clad pipe protection on both banks, remain from the pre-war structure.