On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first nuclear bomb used in wartime on the city of Hiroshima, followed three days later by the bombing of Nagasaki. In his speech on the occasion, while he stopped short of issuing an apology, Obama asked other nuclear powers to help bring the dream of a nuclear-free world to reality.
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As part of the vigil, peace advocates had a table where people could fill out postcards meant to encourage President Obama to scale back America’s nuclear arsenal and to sign a “no first use” pledge – essentially saying the US would only use nukes if such weapons were first deployed by an adversary.
Iran’s former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter on Monday to President Barack Obama, asking him to “quickly fix” a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing families of people killed in attacks linked to.
Janine Chambers, 66, who lives in Washington, expressed hope that the next USA president will “keep the momentum” toward a nuclear-free world.
Representatives from 91 countries – including countries that possess nuclear weapons, like Britain, France, Russia and the USA – attended the ceremony.
“The idea is to show how unsafe nuclear weapons are by bringing them to the eye of the public in a way that makes sense”, said Ofelia Cohen-Odiaga, 16, an event coordinator and senior at Commonwealth School in Back Bay.
Matsui addressed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was at the ceremony, saying that “a nuclear-weapon-free-world would manifest the noble pacifism of the Japanese constitution”.
In an ideal world, “our legislators would cut back on or eliminate nuclear weapons”, said Peterson.
The Aug. 6, 1945, bombing killed or wounded about 150,000 people, according to research from the University of California at Los Angeles.
The names of 5,511 victims whose deaths were confirmed in the past year were added to the list of deceased victims at the Cenotaph for the atomic bomb victims. (Yuya Shino) A boy floats a candle-lit paper lantern on the river on Saturday during 71st anniversary activities commemorating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Survivors of the atomic explosions at Hiroshima or Nagasaki are called Hibakusha, and their average age is 80.
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However, many hibakusha are concerned that Abe’s government is seeking to amend the supreme law, with those in favor of revisions now controlling more than two-thirds of the seats in both Diet chambers following last month’s upper house election – a requirement for proposing constitutional amendments.
