Hiroshima marks 80 years since atomic bombing

A silent prayer was held in Japan on Wednesday morning as it marked 80 years since the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.

Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba attended the ceremony on Wednesday, along with officials from around the world.

“Japan is the only nation that has suffered an atomic bombing in war,” Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui said at the city’s Peace Memorial Park. “The Japanese government represents a people who aspire for genuine and lasting peace.”

World War Two ended with Japan’s surrender after the dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place days apart.

The bombs killed more than 200,000 people – some from the immediate blast and others from radiation sickness and burns.

The legacy of the weapons continues to haunt survivors today.

“My father was badly burned and blinded by the blast. His skin was hanging from his body – he couldn’t even hold my hand,” Hiroshima survivor Shingo Naito told the BBC. He was six years old when the bomb struck his city, killing his father and two younger siblings.

Mr Naito has been sharing his story with a group of students in Hiroshima, who are turning his memories of the tragedy into art.

In 2024, Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

In a speech on Wednesday, Hiroshima mayor Matsui warned of an “accelerating trend toward military build-up around the world” and “the idea that nuclear weapons are essential for national defence”.

“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said. “They threaten to topple the peacebuilding frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct.”

Matsui said that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, was “on the brink of dysfunctionality”.

He also called on the Japanese government to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – an international agreement banning nuclear weapons that came into force in 2021.

More than 70 countries have ratified the treaty, but nuclear powers like the US and Russia have opposed it, pointing to the deterrence function of nuclear arsenals.

Japan has also rejected such a ban, arguing that its security is enhanced by US nuclear weapons.

The nuclear issue is a divisive one in Japan. On the streets leading up to the Peace Memorial Park, there were small protests calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Saitoshi Tanaka, another atomic bomb survivor who suffered multiple cancers from radiation exposure, said that seeing the bloodshed in Gaza and Ukraine today conjures up his own suffering.

“Seeing the mountains of rubble, the destroyed cities, the children and women fleeing in panic, it all brings back memories of what I went through,” he told the BBC. “We are living alongside nuclear weapons that could wipe out humanity multiple times over.”

“The most urgent priority is to push the leaders of nuclear-armed countries. The people of the world must become even more outraged, raise their voices louder, and take massive action.”