(Photo Source: krctimes.com)
The Nuclear Attack On Hiroshima Remembered Today
On August 6, Hiroshima marked the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. During the ceremony, the mayor renewed calls for eliminating such weapons and demanding Japan’s government do more.
In a peace declaration, Mayor Kazumi Matsui raised concerns about the rise of self-centered politics and urged leaders to work towards a world without atomic weapons. “Around the world today, we see self-centered nationalism in ascendance, tensions heightened by international exclusivity and rivalry, with nuclear disarmament at a standstill,” Matsui said.
In May 2016 during his visit to Hiroshima and being the first sitting U.S. president to go, Barack Obama also called for a “world without nuclear weapons.”
On Aug. 6, 1945, by order from then-President Harry S. Truman, the U.S. attacked Hiroshima using an atomic bomb—the US B-29 bomber aircraft, the Enola Gay, dropped “Little Boy”—killing 140,000 people. Another atomic bomb was dropped three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000 before Japan surrendered, thus ending World War II. Approximately 70,000 more died from radiation exposure.
However, “the five-year death total may have reached or even exceeded 200,000” due to cancer and other long-term effects, according to the Department of Energy’s history of the Manhattan Project. Since then, the U.S. has remained the only country to ever use an atomic bomb in war.
By: Maytinee Kramer
