TOKYO • Nagasaki must be the last place to suffer an atomic bombing, its mayor said yesterday, marking 72 years since the devastating American nuclear attack on the Japanese city with a passionate call for denuclearisation..
TOKYO • Nagasaki must be the last place to suffer an atomic bombing, its mayor said yesterday, marking 72 years since the devastating American nuclear attack on the Japanese city with a passionate call for denuclearisation.
The anniversary comes as tensions over North Korea’s rogue weapons programme and increasingly bellicose rhetoric from United States President Donald Trump rattle the region and put the nuclear threat in the spotlight.
« A strong sense of anxiety is spreading across the globe that in the not-too-distant future, these weapons could actually be used again, » said Mayor Tomihisa Taue at a ceremony at Nagasaki Peace Park. « Nagasaki must be the last place to suffer an atomic bombing. »
A bell tolled as thousands of people, including ageing survivors and relatives of victims, observed a minute’s silence at 11.02am local time, the exact moment that the blast struck on Aug 9,1945, in the closing days of World War II.
