The Mayor of Nagasaki, Japan warned that current global conflicts could push the world again into nuclear war at a prayer meet on Saturday to mark 80 years since A-bomb. Representatives from 95 countries and territories, including nuclear superpowers Russia and the U.S., attended the annual ceremony at Nagasaki Peace Memorial Park.
After a moment of silence at 11:02 a.m., marking the time of the blast, Mayor Shiro Suzuki called on leaders to return to the principles of the U.N. Charter and show a concrete path toward abolishing nuclear weapons, warning that delay was “no longer permissible”.
Nihon Hidankyo, Japan’s leading organisation of A-bomb survivors, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for campaigning for a world without nuclear weapons.
On 09 August 1945, United States dropped a 10,000-pound plutonium-239 bomb nicknamed “Fat Man” on the Western Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing nearly 27,000 of the city’s estimated 200,000 people. By the end of 1945, the death toll from acute radiation exposure had reached about 70,000.
Nagasaki’s destruction came three days after a U.S. uranium-235 bomb destroyed Hiroshima. Japan eventually surrendered on August 15, ending World War II.
Japan, the only country to have suffered nuclear attacks, has stated its commitment to nuclear disarmament, but is not a signatory or observer of the U.N. treaty to ban nuclear weapons.
Disclaimer: The article has reference to open sources including Reuters.
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