The Japanese city of Nagasaki is marking 70 years since the dropping of an atomic bomb by the United States.
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Mourners gathered at Nagasaki Peace Park in Japan on Sunday to commemorate those who lost their lives during the atomic bombing by the US 70 years ago.
A minute of silence will be observed in Japan.
An American plane dropped a bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, in one of the closing chapters of World War II, turning the bustling city into an inferno and killing an estimated 140,000 people.
Abe has said the statement will express “remorse” for Japan’s war-time actions but domestic media reported over the weekend that the word “apology” will not be included.
But then he turned on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sitting nearby.
The mayor also referred to the “widespread unease and concern” over security-related bills now being discussed and urged the government and the Diet “to conduct careful and honest deliberations”.
“We can not accept this”, 86-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi said, after describing in graphic detail his traumatic injuries and how others died in the August. 9, 1945, attack on Nagasaki. But the bomb dropped here was made from plutonium and was even more powerful.
A wall of heat up to 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,200 degrees Fahrenheit) – hot enough to melt steel – incinerated that city.
For Shizuka Kuramitsu, a college student attending a peace- praying lantern floating ceremony on Thursday evening in downtown Hiroshima, what Abe said and did are worrisome.
Gums bled, teeth fell out, hair came off in clumps; there were cancers, premature births, malformed babies and sudden deaths.
The 16 kiloton atomic bomb that was dropped during the final stages of World War II on the city was nicknamed as Little Boy.
Abe, a strident nationalist, has also been criticized at home for his efforts to expand the role of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, changes that could open the door to putting troops into combat for the first time since the end of the war.
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“We have been tasked with conveying the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, across generations and borders”, he told the crowd.
