The Japanese city of Nagasaki soberly commemorated on Monday the American nuclear bombing that destroyed it 76 years ago, the mayor calling on the international community to adopt a new treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. On August 9, 1945, at 11:02 a.m., the atomic bomb dropped by the Americans killed 74,000 people, three days after the nuclear attack that wiped out Hiroshima, killing 140,000.
Survivors and a handful of foreign officials took part in a minute of silence at 11:02 a.m. (2:02 GMT), the exact time the atomic bomb exploded, on August 9, 1945.
Restricted ceremony due to coronavirus
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, and for the second year in a row, the number of people authorized to attend the ceremony had been restricted. This ceremony is the first since the entry into force in January of the International Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons (TIAN). “International leaders must commit to reducing nuclear weapons and building confidence through dialogue, and civil society must push them in this direction,” said Tomihisa Taue, Mayor of Nagasaki. However, this treaty was not signed by the nine countries holding atomic weapons (United States, Russia, China, France, United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea).
The TIAN was not signed either by Tokyo, an unwavering ally of Washington and closely dependent on American military power to ensure its regional defense. “As the only country to have suffered atomic bombardment during the war, our mission is to advance the international community, step by step, towards a world without nuclear weapons,” Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said at the conference. ceremony.
Japan commemorated 76 years of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima on Friday. The president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had refused, before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics in July, to call for a minute of silence at the Games on the occasion of the commemoration of Friday.