Japan marked 80 years since Hiroshima’s atomic bombardment on Wednesday with a ceremony reminiscent of the world of unleashed horrors, since it knows-orattling between the United States and Russia maintains the “Nuclear Final Judgment Day” clock “near midnight.
A silent prayer was performed at 8:15 am (2315 GMT), the moment when the American plane in Gay dropped “small child” on the western Japanese city on August 6, 1945.
In a suffocating morning, hundreds of officials, students and survivors dressed in black placed flowers in the memorial cenotapio, with the ruins of a vaulted building in the background, a marked reminder of the horrors that were developed.
In a speech, the mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, warned that “an accelerated trend towards military accumulation worldwide”, in the context of the invasion of Russia of Ukraine and Chaos in the Middle East.
“These developments flagrantly ignore the lessons that the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said.
Prime Minister Shigeru ishiba said it was Japan’s mission “to take the lead … towards a world without nuclear weapons.”
The number of deaths for the death of Hiroshima’s attack would hit about 140,000 people, killed not only by the colossal explosion and the fireball, but also by radiation.
Three days after “Little Boy”, on August 9, another atomic bomb killed 74,000 people in Nagasaki. Imperial Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II.
Today, Hiroshima is a prosperous metropolis of 1.2 million, but attacks live in the memories of many.
On the eve of the ceremony, people began to film to present their respects to the victims against cenotaph.
Before Wednesday’s dawn, families who lost loved ones in the attack also came to pray.
Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, who arrived at a wheelchair with his grandson, told journalists that his parents and grandparents were victims of bombs.
“My grandfather died shortly after the bombing, while my father and my mother died after developing cancer. My parents also died, so my husband could not see them again when he returned from the battlefields after the war.
“People are still suffering,” he added.
Wednesday’s ceremony would include a record of around 120 countries and regions, including, for the first time, Taiwanese and Palestinian representatives.
The United States, which has never been formally apologized for bombings, was represented by its ambassador to Japan. Russia and China were absent.
Nihon Hidankyo, the basic organization that last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, represents the increasing number of survivors, known as Hibakusha.
As of March, there were 99,130 Hibakusha, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, with an average age of 86.
“I want foreign envoys to visit the Memorial Museum of Peace and understand what happened,” said co -president of the Toshiyuki Mimaki group to local media before commemorations.
Pope Leo XIV said in a statement that “in our time of growing global tensions and conflicts,” Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained “the living reminders of the deep horrors caused by nuclear weapons.”
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, warned that “the same weapons that brought so much devastation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are once again treated as coercion tools.”
Younger generation
The attacks are still the only time that atomic bombs have been used in times of war.
Kunihiko Sakuma, 80, who survived explosions like a baby, told AFP that he hoped that there could finally be a world free of nuclear.
“The youngest generation is working hard for that purpose,” he said before the ceremony.
But in January, the “Watch of the Final Judgment” Bulletin of atomic scientists changed 89 seconds to midnight, the closest in its 78 years of history.
The clock that symbolizes the distance of the humanity of destruction moved for the last time to 90 seconds at midnight on the invasion of Russia of Ukraine in 2022.
Russia and the United States represent about 90 percent of the more than 12,000 eyelets in the world, according to the International Peace Research Institute of Stockholm (SIPRI).
Sipri warned in June that “a new dangerous nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when weapons control regimes weaken severely”, with almost all nine nuclear armed states that modernize its arsenals.
Earlier this month, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, said he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines after an in line with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
