Second world war
Hiroshima commemorates victims of atomic bombing 78 years ago
On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. (local time) the US bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb used in the war over Hiroshima. photo
© Uncredited/Kyodo News/AP
With the first atomic bomb in a war, the USA turns Hiroshima into a blazing hell in 1945. In view of the renewed increase in the nuclear threat, there is an urgent appeal to the world on the anniversary.
Amid global concerns about the rising risk of nuclear war, the Japanese city Hiroshima commemorates the victims of the atomic bombing 78 years ago. At a key commemoration ceremony marking the anniversary of the US atomic bomb drop, Mayor Kazumi Matsui on Sunday hailed the visit of G7 leaders to Hiroshima Peace Park for their May summit as evidence that the “spirit” of Hiroshima has reached them.
At the same time, Matsui urged policymakers around the world to abandon the theory of nuclear deterrence. “They must take concrete steps immediately to take us from the dangerous present to our ideal world,” Matsui said.
At 8:15 a.m. (local time), the time when the US bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb called “Little Boy” on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the participants in the ceremony in the city observed a minute’s silence a.
Symbol for war – and for peace
Tens of thousands of Hiroshima residents died immediately when the American atomic bomb was dropped, and an estimated 140,000 people died by the end of 1945. Three days after dropping Hiroshima, the US dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Shortly thereafter, the Japanese Empire capitulated. Today, Hiroshima is a symbol of war – and of peace.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote on the short message service X: “Anyone who has visited Hiroshima knows that the memory of it never fades”. At their summit meeting in Hiroshima in May, the leading democratic economic powers (G7) made their first commitment to nuclear disarmament in a joint declaration. In the so-called “Hiroshima Vision,” the heads of state and government sharply criticized Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine and also expressed their concern about China’s nuclear buildup.
Representatives from 111 countries and the European Union attended the commemoration ceremony in Hiroshima on Sunday, an unprecedented number. Like last year, Russia and Belarus were not invited to the commemoration ceremony this year because of the invasion of Ukraine. Around 50,000 people took part.