TOKYO: On August 9, Japan remembered the 77th anniversary of the Second World War’s atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
According to reports, more people were able to attend the annual festival as a result of the Covid-19 restrictions being loosened.
Representatives and politicians from more than 80 nations joined survivors and victims’ families at the ceremony after arriving early in the morning to pray.
At 11.02 a.m., a moment of silence was held in memory of the Fat Man nuclear bomb, which, by the end of the following year, had killed nearly 74,000 people in Nagasaki. It was dropped on August 9, 1945, at this precise moment by a US B-29 bomber.
As of the end of July, Nagasaki officially acknowledged 192,310 people as having died as a result of the atomic bombs and reported the deaths of 3,160 atomic bomb survivors at that time.
The bombing of Nagasaki with atomic weapons took place after the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, which prompted Japan to surrender.
Taue Tomihisa, the mayor of Nagasaki, emphasised during the ceremony that a concrete plan for reducing nuclear arsenals must be shown, and that nuclear powers have a special obligation due to the non-proliferation pact.
In his statement, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated that Japan is committed to advancing the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world.