Nagasaki mayor warns of ‘crisis’ on atomic bomb anniversary

Nuclear weapons represent a “tangible and present crisis” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the mayor of Nagasaki said on Tuesday, marking the 77th anniversary of the nuclear bombing that devastated the Japanese city.

On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was leveled in an inferno that killed 74,000 people, three days after the world’s first atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

The double strikes of the United States led to the end of World War II, and to this day Japan is the only country to have been hit by nuclear weapons in wartime.

But Mayor Tomihisa Taue sounded the alarm on Tuesday.

“In January this year, the leaders of the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China released a joint statement reiterating that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,'” he said he.

“But the very next month Russia invaded Ukraine. Threats to use nuclear weapons were made, causing shudders around the world.

“The use of nuclear weapons is not a ‘baseless fear’ but a ‘tangible and present crisis,'” Taue said, warning that they could be triggered by miscalculations, malfunctions or terrorist attacks.

Survivors and foreign dignitaries, along with hundreds of members of the public, said a silent prayer at 11:02 am (0202 GMT), just as the bomb was dropped over the port city.

Bells rang and doves were released during the somber memorial service at Nagasaki Peace Park, with purified water offered in a prayer ceremony for victims who died from burns and other injuries.

Instead of waging war, humanity should “promote a ‘culture of peace’ that spreads trust, respects others and seeks solutions through dialogue,” Taue said.

On Saturday, UN chief Antonio Guterres delivered a speech in Hiroshima to mark the anniversary of the attack that killed around 140,000 people, including those who died from radiation exposure after the blast.

He warned that “mankind is playing with a loaded gun” as crises with the potential for nuclear catastrophe unfold around the world.

A message from Guterres, read in Japanese at Tuesday’s ceremony, said that “in these times of high tension and low confidence, we should draw on the lessons of Nagasaki.”

Japan has long called for a nuclear-weapons-free world but has not joined any nuclear-ban treaty that came into force in 2021 and hopes to bridge the gap between nuclear-armed powers that have not joined the treaty and non-nuclear-weapon states.