Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. About 50,000 participants including ageing survivors and dignitaries held a moment of silence at a memorial ceremony in the western Japanese city.
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On August 6, some 80,000 people were killed immediately, to be followed by another 60,000 by the end of 1945.
Matsui urged Abe to maintain the determination showed during Obama’s historic visit to strive towards a world free of nuclear weapons.
To accelerate Japan’s surrender in the WWII, the USA forces dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
In an annual speech – called the Peace Declaration – on the anniversary of the bombing, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui quoted an excerpt from U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech which he delivered at the same venue during a visit in May.
It was the second-largest number of represented countries, after the 100 that marked the 70th anniversary a year ago. Matsui said that it is necessary to take actions to save the world from the “absolute evil” of nuclear weapons.
Those atomic bombings changed the world forever and ushered in the nuclear age.
He urged him to join Obama in taking the leadership toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons.
Several groups in the USA and around the world need our support to bring about the abolition of nuclear weapons that President Barack Obama proclaimed as his goal in Prague in 2009 when he said. An atomic bombing three days later in Nagasaki killed or wounded about 75,000 people.
Mari Miyoshi was the main speaker at an anniversary event in Dublin’s Merrion Square, which has been held every year since 1980 and is seen as an exemplar of Ireland’s staunch opposition to nuclear weapons.
“The survivors of this atomic bombing – known as the Hibakusha – have pleaded to the world for so many years to abolish nuclear weapons so that no one else will ever suffer the horror and the suffering of what happens when atomic bombs are dropped on civilization”.
He underlined the country would do so by “calling for cooperation from both nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states and having world leaders and young people become directly acquainted with the tragic reality of the atomic bombing”.
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He was the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima. This policy would state that under no circumstances would the United States be the first country to use nuclear weapons.
