75 years of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings
By Lesley M.M. Blume, National Geographic As it has done in most cities around the world, the COVID-19 virus has altered or cancelled much of Hiroshima’s daily life: concerts, marathons, museum exhibits. The Japanese city of Nagasaki on August -09 marked its 75th anniversary of the US atomic bombing, with the mayor and dwindling survivors urging world leaders including their own to do more for a nuclear weapons ban. The ceremony commemorating the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city by the United States on August 6, 1945 was attended only by bomb survivors—or hibakusha—and their families. Audience members seated six feet apart in the Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park with world leaders, no longer able to attend in person were asked to submit video messages instead. Hiroshima is harrowingly familiar with abrupt, unfathomable tragedy. But when I visited the city in late 2018, I was struck by how ordinary it looked and felt. I recall sitting on the narrow, elegant Motoyasu Bridge watching a bustling morning scene. Briefcase-carrying commuters in suits walked and biked across the bridge. Schoolchildren in uniforms skipped by in small groups. Nearby, a riverside café with a pretty fruit stand and ice cream stall out front was getting ready to open. It could have been a scene from any city. But Hiroshima, of course, is not just any city. About 500 yards north of Motoyasu Bridge stands another bridge, the Aioi. The span was the original target for the bombing crew of the Enola Gay, which dropped a nearly 10,000-pound uranium bomb that detonated close to the spot where I was perched. Hiroshima’s leaders say they want the city to be regarded by the world in two ways: as a cautionary tale—a warning about the horrors of nuclear warfare—and as a phoenix that survived those horrors and resurrected itself, a triumph of the human spirit. (Photo | AP)
Tags : Interviews Hiroshima Nagasaki Bombings human spirit uranium bomb National Geographic