US honors Nagasaki dead for first time
Source: Agencies |
August 10, 2011, Wednesday
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THE US yesterday sent its first representative to the annual memorial of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, one of two nuclear attacks that led Japan to surrender in World War II.
The Nagasaki bombing by the US 66 years ago killed about 80,000 people. Three days earlier, the US had dropped another nuclear bomb on Hiroshima that killed up to 140,000 people.
US Charge d'Affaires James Zumwalt, the first American representative to visit the Nagasaki memorial, said US President Barack Obama hoped to work with Japan toward his goal "of realizing a world without nuclear weapons" - a commitment Japan has made repeatedly since the war.
Zumwalt joined Nagasaki's residents and its mayor yesterday in observing a moment of silence at 11:02am - the moment the bomb dropped on the city on August 9, 1945. Six days later Japan surrendered.
As in past years, a bell rang out in a prayer for peace, and bomb victims who were children at the time of the attack sang the Japanese song "Never Again."
Mayor Tomihisa Taue called on Japan to change its nuclear policy and reject not just atomic weapons but also nuclear power - as decades-old fears of radiation sickness were renewed in March by the nuclear power plant disaster triggered by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
"Why must this nation that has so long fought for bomb victims once again live in fear of radiation?" Taue said. "The time has come to talk thoroughly about what kind of society we want and make a choice."
He called for a shift from nuclear reactors - Japan has 54 along its coastline - to renewable energy sources.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has promised Japan will work toward making society less dependent on nuclear power. "We must never forget," he said of Nagasaki, "and it must never be repeated."
The Nagasaki bombing by the US 66 years ago killed about 80,000 people. Three days earlier, the US had dropped another nuclear bomb on Hiroshima that killed up to 140,000 people.
US Charge d'Affaires James Zumwalt, the first American representative to visit the Nagasaki memorial, said US President Barack Obama hoped to work with Japan toward his goal "of realizing a world without nuclear weapons" - a commitment Japan has made repeatedly since the war.
Zumwalt joined Nagasaki's residents and its mayor yesterday in observing a moment of silence at 11:02am - the moment the bomb dropped on the city on August 9, 1945. Six days later Japan surrendered.
As in past years, a bell rang out in a prayer for peace, and bomb victims who were children at the time of the attack sang the Japanese song "Never Again."
Mayor Tomihisa Taue called on Japan to change its nuclear policy and reject not just atomic weapons but also nuclear power - as decades-old fears of radiation sickness were renewed in March by the nuclear power plant disaster triggered by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
"Why must this nation that has so long fought for bomb victims once again live in fear of radiation?" Taue said. "The time has come to talk thoroughly about what kind of society we want and make a choice."
He called for a shift from nuclear reactors - Japan has 54 along its coastline - to renewable energy sources.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has promised Japan will work toward making society less dependent on nuclear power. "We must never forget," he said of Nagasaki, "and it must never be repeated."
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