{Good evening.}
Some 70 years on, and Japan remembers.
Hiroshima today marked the 76th anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing by the United States during World War II.
{RVO}
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ceremony was significantly scaled down.
Attending the ceremony, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga stressed the need for a more "realistic" approach to bridge the gap between nuclear and non-nuclear states.
The global Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons took effect in January this year after years of civil effort joined by the disaster's survivors. But the treaty lacks the U.S. and other nuclear powers, as well as Japan.
The U.S. dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, destroying the city and leaving 140,000 people deceased. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later, killing another 70,000. Surrendering on August 15, 1945, Japan ended the catastrophic World War II, as well as its nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.
Comments