Japan has marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki that claimed tens of thousands of lives in one of the final chapters of World War II.
Memorial services were held on Sunday in the now bustling port city, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy in attendance. Bells tolled as ageing survivors, the relatives of victims and others remembered the devastating blast at 11:02am local time (02:02 GMT) on August 9, 1945. About 74,000 people died in the initial blast near a major arms factory from a plutonium bomb dubbed “Fat Man”, or from after-effects in the months and years following the bombing.
The attack on Nagasaki came three days after American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped a bomb, dubbed “Little Boy”, on Hiroshima, the first atomic bombing in history. Nearly everything around it was incinerated by a wall of heat up to 4,000 degrees Celsius – hot enough to melt steel. Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from Tokyo, said that Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue had used his speech at Sunday’s memorial service to warn against the government’s new security legislation.
Abe’s coalition last month approved controversial legislations in the lower house of parliament that would lift a ban on sending troops to fight abroad, despite much opposition from lawmakers and thousands protesting against it outside the parliament building. Fawcett said Mayor Taue on Sunday had called on the government to ensure that “sincere and careful deliberation” took place before it proceeded with the laws. About 140,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the Hiroshima attack, including those who survived the bombing itself but later died from radiation sickness.
