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Japan Recalls 75th Anniversary Of World’s First Nuclear Bombing

By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News

(Worthy News) – Japan on Thursday marked the 75th anniversary since the world’s first atomic bomb attack, but the coronavirus pandemic meant events were curtailed.

The general public was kept away from what was likely the last major anniversary of the bombing for most survivors. 

Instead, the main event in Hiroshima was broadcast online with only survivors, relatives and a handful of foreign dignitaries attending. 

Despite reports of increasing coronavirus infections, about 800 people attended a tenth of the turnout in a normal year. 

This year’s commemoration honored the declining population of survivors — about 136,000 — of the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States. 

PEACEFUL WORLD?

At the ceremony, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to gradually work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. There were also religious prayers for the victims and more calls for a more peaceful world. 

The survivors’ decades of peace efforts contributed in 2017 to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations. 

But the accord has not been signed by nuclear-armed states, or by Japan itself. ”Most survivors now say that a world free of nuclear weapons is a distant dream, ” noted The New York Times newspaper.

The bomb attack on Hiroshima killed around 140,000 people, many of them instantly, according to experts. 

Others were perishing in the weeks and months that followed, suffering radiation sickness, devastating burns, and other injuries. Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, where 74,000 people were killed.

CONTROVERSY REMAINS

The bombings remain controversial with critics calling them ”war crimes” while others, including survivors of Japanese labor camps, argue they helped to end World War Two. 

They also underscored the beginning of a global nuclear arms race, initially between the United States and the then Soviet Union. 

Memories are still fresh for 83-year-old Keiko Ogura, who lived through the Hiroshima bombing. “I recall the fear I felt right after the bombing… no one can escape”, she told media recently. 

The survivor urged the world’s residents to fight global challenges together.  ”Whether it’s the coronavirus or nuclear weapons, the way to overcome it is through solidarity among mankind,” she stressed.