Japan marks Hiroshima bombing amid anti-nuclear calls

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19144486

 6 August 2012 - BBC News Asia

 

Japan is marking the 67th anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima in an annual ceremony.

Tens of thousands of people attended the event, amid growing anti-nuclear sentiment and protests in the country.

A bell marked the start of a one-minute silence at 08:15 local time (23:15 GMT) when the US bomber Enola Gay dropped the bomb that killed 140,000 people.

Mayor Kazumi Matsui called for a nuclear-free world at the event at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

"I call on the Japanese government to establish without any delay an energy policy that guards the safety and security of the people," he said.

Mr Matsui also called for more support for aging survivors of the WW II attack who are battling health issues caused by radiation from the bomb.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, at the ceremony, said the lessons of Hiroshima must not be forgotten.

Sixty-six years on: Nagasaki remembers bombing

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan at
the Nagasaki Peace Park in Nagasaki. (AP)

The United States sent its first representative on Tuesday to the annual memorial for the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, one of two horrific attacks that led Japan to surrender in World War II.

The Nagasaki bombing by the United States 66 years ago killed about 80 000 people. Three days earlier, the US had dropped another nuclear bomb that killed up to 140 000 in the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

US Charge d'Affaires James P Zumwalt, the first American representative to visit the Nagasaki memorial, said that President Barack Obama hoped to work with Japan toward his goal "of realising a world without nuclear weapons" -- a commitment Japan has made repeatedly since the war.

Obama last year sent Ambassador John Roos to the 65th anniversary memorial of the bombing in Hiroshima, and Roos visited Nagasaki twice last year on other dates, according to the US Embassy in Japan.

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