Hiroshima nuclear bomb survivors mark 80 years in 'last' milestone for many

Hiroshima yesterday marked the 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the city, in what was considered the last milestone event for many of the ageing survivors.

The average age of the dwindling number of survivors is now 86, and many of those marking the occasion expressed frustration about the growing support for nuclear weapons as a deterrence. The bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, destroyed the city and killed 140,000 people while a second bomb dropped three days later on Nagasaki killed 70,000.

Minoru Suzuto, a 94-year-old survivor, said after he kneeled down to pray at the cenotaph: “There will be nobody left to pass on this sad and painful experience in 10 years or 20 years. That’s why I want to share (my story) as much as I can.”

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Yesterday around 55,000 people, including representatives from a record 120 countries and regions, including Russia and Belarus, attended a ceremony in the city’s peace memorial park. A minute’s silence was held while a peace bell rang out at 8.15am, the time when a US B-29 dropped the bomb on the city.

Just under 100,000 survivors are still alive, according to recent data from Japan’s health ministry, from the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The names and other personal details of more than 4,940 registered survivors who have died in the past year were added to a registry kept inside the cenotaph, bringing the number of deaths attributed to the Hiroshima bombing to almost 350,000.

Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, ending World War II and Japan’s nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.

At that time Yoshie Yokoyama was just 16-years-old. Now 96 and a wheelchair user, she visited the park early in the morning with her grandson, and said her parents and grandparents had died as a result of the Hiroshima attack.

“My grandfather died soon after the bombing, while my father and mother both died after developing cancer,” she said. “My parents-in-law also died, so my husband couldn’t see them again when he came back from battlefields after the war. People are still suffering.”

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui warned against a growing acceptance of military buildups and of using nuclear weapons for national security during Russia’s war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East east, with the United States and Russia possessing most of the world’s nuclear warheads.

“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said. “They threaten to topple the peacebuilding frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct.”

He urged younger generations to recognise that such “misguided policies” could cause “utterly inhumane” consequences for their future. While Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese grassroots organisation of survivors that won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for its pursuit of nuclear abolishment, said: “We don’t have much time left, while we face a greater nuclear threat than ever. Our biggest challenge now is to change, even just a little, nuclear weapons states that give us the cold shoulder,” the organisation said in its statement.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the city’s mayor and other officials laid flowers at the cenotaph. Dozens of white doves, a symbol of peace, were released after the mayor’s speech.

Hours before the official ceremony, as the sun rose over Hiroshima, survivors and their families started paying tribute to the victims at the park, near the centre of the nuclear blast 80 years ago. Kazuo Miyoshi, a 74-year-old retiree, came to honour his grandfather and two cousins who died in the bombing and prayed that the “mistake” will never be repeated. “We do not need nuclear weapons,” Miyoshi said.

Near Hiroshima’s iconic Atomic Bomb Dome under high security, more than 200 anti-war protesters gathered. Some survivors said they were disappointed by President Donald Trump’s recent remark justifying Washington’s attack on Iran in June by comparing it to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the mild response from the Japanese government.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Kosei Mito, a 79-year-old former high school teacher who was exposed to radiation while he was still in his mother’s womb. “I don’t think we can get rid of nuclear weapons as long as it was justified by the assailant.”

In the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV said that he was praying for those who suffered physical, psychological and social effects from the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, adding that the event remains “a universal warning against the devastation caused by wars and, in particular, by nuclear weapons.”