80 years later, the survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima warn against the new nuclear war

Hiroshima, Japan – For more than half a century, the Cairons have sounded in the Japanese city of Hiroshima every morning at 8:15 am.

The solemn ritual marked the precise moment on August 6, 1945, when the American bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb in the world on Hiroshima, killing around 70,000 people instantly.

On Wednesday, the inhabitants of Hiroshima commemorated the 80th anniversary of the devastating attack, while the fears nuclear rises in the midst of unresolved military conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

In a one -minute silent tribute, the city remembered death and large -scale destruction caused by the 10,000 pound bomb, which created a huge cloud of mushrooms that reached more than 60,000 feet.

“It is our duty to transmit the reality of the atomic attacks not only to the people of Japan but also to the people of the world,” said Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in a speech.

Initially intended to strike a T -shaped bridge, the bomb rather raped towards an exhibition hall with a distinctive dome, which after the explosion was the only building still within a radius of 1 mile.

The explosion triggered a whirlwind of fire and strength, cremating thousands of people. Then came the radioactive black rain, which fell above the city, silently poisoning more countless.

Teruko Yahata was 8 years old at the time.

Yahata, who is now in the 80s, says that she still has a scar from the moment when she was launched by the explosion. Fearing another bomb, she huddled under a blanket with her family.

“I didn’t really understand what it meant to die,” said Yahata, “but the warmth I felt while dying together … I still remember this day.”

Three days after bombing Hiroshima, the United States sparked a second atomic bomb in the city of Nagasaki which immediately killed 40,000 other people.

The unprecedented attacks have accelerated the surrender of Imperial Japan and the end of the Second World War, most historians say, although at the cost of almost a quarter of a million lives.

Ashes, Hiroshima was rebuilt in a lively city of more than a million people, attracting tourists from around the world.

Near it to hypoce, where the bomb exploded at around 2,000 feet above, there is a park and a peace museum that understand the emblematic atomic dome. Using virtual reality headsets, visitors can immerse themselves in bombing and its brutal consequences during the tour of the park.

However, the bombing is always visceral to the survivors of Hiroshima, who are called Hibakusha, or “people affected by the bomb”. Today aged over 86 on average, they have spent most of their lives struggling with illness, depression and discrimination.

Kunihiko Iida, whose father was killed during the war and whose older mother and sister died shortly after the attack, is now 83, defying the predictions that he would not live at the age of 20.

Those who say that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have saved lives, he said: “I do not know the reality of a nuclear bomb.”

Last year, the work of the Japanese survivor group Nihon Hidankyo received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Toshiyuki Mimaki, co -president of the group, is one of those who recommend nuclear disarmament and ensure that Hiroshima is neither forgotten nor repeated.

“We are in a very dangerous situation with Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Iran,” he said. “Even a single nuclear bomb would mean a disaster.”

According to the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons (ICAN), the nine world nuclear weapons – Russia, the United States, China, France, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – spent more than $ 100 billion for nuclear weapons last year, up 11% compared to 2023.

The increase in expenses in nuclear weapons contrasts with the attitudes of the public about them. In a survey in June on the Americans by the Pew Research Center, 69% of respondents said that the development of nuclear weapons had made the world less safe, against 10% which had declared that it had made the world safer.

According to a survey, almost 70% of Japanese atomic bomb survivors believe that nuclear weapons could be used, according to a survey by the Japanese news agency Kyodo News.

Hiroshima Survivor Settsuko Thurlow, 93, lost 10 family members in bombing. She said that she remembered having seen a procession of people fleeing to the hill that “looked like ghosts”.

“Everyone’s hair rose, raised upwards, and the skin and the flesh detached from the bones,” she said.

Thurlow, who went to the United States to study in 1954 – the same year that the United States tested a hydrogen bomb 1000 times more powerful than that which destroyed Hiroshima – spent his life campaigning for nuclear disarmament, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 in the name of IAN.

“I beg the world leaders to stop and come to the negotiating table. Diplomacy must have greater attention,” she said in a video interview in Toronto. “These are not nuclear weapons, but diplomacy, the exchange of words and ideas.”

The number of hibakusha decreases, which makes fear that the living memory of the attacks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will soon disappear. According to the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, 99 survivors nationwide.

The responsibility of remembering is to take care of young people such as Shun Sasaki, 12, who gave foreign visitors free guided tours of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park since the age of 7.

Sasaki said that even if his great-grandmother was one of those who were killed in the attack, his family barely recognized him.

“The most frightening thing that could happen in the future is to forget what happened a long time ago,” said Sasaki.

“I don’t want anyone to have the same experience as my great-grandmother.”

Sasaki is not the only family to have avoided talking about that day. Over 70% of Kyodo survey respondents said they’ve never talked about their experiences.

Even so, some believe that it is their duty to speak.

“As long as I live, I want to continue to say it,” said Yahata. “I am a survivor.”

Janis MacKey Frayer and Mai Nishiyama reported to Hiroshima, Arata Yamamoto de Tokyo, Michael Fiorentino from London and Peter Guo from Hong Kong.