Japan marks Hiroshima anniversary as regional conflicts rage

The governor of Hiroshima in Japan has made an impassioned plea to world leaders to get rid of nuclear weapons as the Japanese city marks the 79th anniversary of a nuclear attack that left around 140,000 people dead and caused massive devastation.

"As long as nuclear weapons exist, they will surely be used again someday," Hidehiko Yuzaki said in his address at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

"Nuclear weapons abolition is not an ideal to achieve far in the future, " he said. "Instead, it is a pressing and real issue that we should desperately engage in at this moment since nuclear problems involve an imminent risk to human survival." 

Gaza, Ukraine wars sowing 'fear and distrust'

Hiroshima's mayor, Kazumi Matsui, used his speech at the same event to highlight how current conflicts were normalizing the use of military force as a means to solve problems.

Matsui said Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza are "claiming the lives of countless innocent people and shattering normal life."

"These global tragedies are deepening distrust and fear among nations, reinforcing the public assumption that to solve international problems we have to rely on military force, which we should be rejecting."

The ceremony in Hiroshima was attended by some 50,000 people, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

They observed a minute of silence with the sound of a peace bell at 8:15 a.m., the time when a US B-29 bomber dropped the bomb on the city.

The commemorative event comes just days after Japan and the US reaffirmed Washington's commitment to "extended deterrence," which includes the possible use of atomic weapons, to protect its Asian ally amid growing regional tensions.

Open discussion of nuclear deterrence in Japan is a radical shift away from the country's previous reluctance to touch on such issues as the only nation in the world to have suffered atomic attacks.

What happened in Hiroshima?

On August 6, 1945, shortly before the end of World War II, US forces detonated a nuclear bomb over the city in a bid to force Japan to surrender.

In addition to the tens of thousands of people who immediately died in the explosion, the attack left a terrible legacy in the many survivors of the bombings who had lasting injuries and illnesses resulting from the explosions and radiation exposure.

Days after the attack, a second US nuclear bomb hit Nagasaki in southwest Japan, killing around 74,000 people.

The two attacks led to Japan's surrender on September 2.

tj/wmr (AFP, AP)