8/9/2012 Nagasaki atomic bomb anniversary remembered

Source: euronews
Date: 8/9/2012 08:44 CET


Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has joined the annual ceremony to remember the World War II bombing of Nagasaki.
As many as 80,000 people died on the August 9 1945, if not instantly, then from the effects of radiation.
The occasion, 67 years on, must have reminded Noda that the effects of radioactivity have once again threatened the lives of tens of thousands of Japanese.
Last February’s powerful earthquake and Tsunami led to a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant. It was the worst nuclear disaster since Chenobyl.
Tomihisa Taue, the city’s mayor reminded the audience gathered at a peace park close to the Nagasaki bomb’s epicentre that 19,000 nuclear weapons still exist in the world.
“In order for ours to be the last city attacked by this technology, the use of nuclear weapons and their development must be clearly prohibited,” Taue said.
The bomb was code named ‘Fat Man’ and came three days after a similar attack on Hiroshima, which killed up to 140,000 people.
Nagasaki was one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and a strategic target for the allies during World War II.
A roughly 7 square kilometre area of the city was destroyed.
The bombings were ordered by then US president Harry Truman, whose grandson Clifton Truman Daniel attended the ceremony.
Days after the bombing, Japan surrendered.