Hiroshima marks 80 years as US-Russia nuclear rise tensions

Japan marked 80 years from Hiroshima’s individual bombing on Wednesday with a ceremony reminiscent of the world of horror released, as Sabre-Rattling between the United States and Russia maintains the “Doomsday” nuclear clock near midnight.

A silent prayer took place at 8:15 am (2315 GMT), while the US aircraft Enola Gay threw “Little Boy” over the western Japanese city on August 6, 1945.

In a prime morning, hundreds of officials, students and survivors put flowers at the Cenotaph monument, with the ruins of a building in the background, a strong reminder of the frustrating rifles.

In a speech, Mayor Hiroshima Kazumi Matsui warned of the “accelerated tendency towards military accumulation around the world”, as part of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and chaos in the Middle East.

“These developments are accidentally overlooked 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 on a leading role … to a world without nuclear weapons”.

The final number of deaths on Hiroshima’s attack would fall about 140,000 people, who were killed not only by the colossal explosion and the ball of fire, but also later 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 the Second World War.

Today, Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million, but the attacks live in the memories of many.

On the eve of the ceremony, people began to align to pay their respects to the victims in front of Cenotaph.

Before dawn on Wednesday, families who lost their loved ones in the attack also came to pray.

Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, who arrived in a wheelchair with her grandson, told reporters that her parents and grandparents were victims of a bomb.

“My grandfather died shortly after the bombing, while my father and mother died after the development of cancer.

“People still suffer,” he added.

Wednesday’s ceremony is expected to include a record of about 120 countries and regions, including, for the first time, Taiwan and Palestinian representatives.

The United States – which never officially apologized for bomb attacks – was represented by its ambassador to Japan. Russia and China were absent.

Nihon Hidankyo, the organization of the base that won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, represents the reduced number of survivors known as Hibakusha.

Since March, there were 99,130 hibakusha, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, with the average age of 86 years.

“I want foreign envoys to visit the Peace Museum and understand what happened,” said team chairman Toshiyuki Mimaki in the local media in front of the celebrations.

Pope Leo XIV said in a statement that “in our time for the placement of global tensions and conflicts”, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained “lively reminders of the deep horrors caused by nuclear weapons”.

United Nations Secretary -General Antonio Guterres warned that “the very weapons that have brought such a disaster in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are again treated as tools of coercion.”

Younger generation

Attacks remain the only time atomic bombs have been used during the war.

Kunihiko Sakuma, 80, who survived the explosions as a baby, told AFP that he was optimistic that there could eventually be a world without nuclear.

“The younger generation is working hard for this purpose,” he said before the ceremony.

But in January, the “Doomsday Clock” newsletter of solo scientists shifted to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest to its 78 -year history.

The clock that symbolizes the distance of mankind from the disaster was recently transferred to 90 seconds until midnight for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russia and the United States account for about 90 % of more than 12,000 chapters in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Sipri warned in June that “a dangerous new race of nuclear equipment emerges at a time when weapons control regimes are weakening seriously”, with almost all nine nuclear armed states modernizing their arsenal.

Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump said he had ordered the development of two nuclear submarines following an online spat with former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.