Hiroshima Day
At 8.15am on August 6 1945, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay opened its payload doors. The payload was the first atomic bomb, codename ‘Little Boy’.
An estimated 80,000 people were killed by the initial blast. By the end of 1945 up to a further 60,000 had died through radiation, injuries and other conditions. The vast majority of these people were civilians.
Sixty-four years ago today, the Nuclear Age began.
If we are truly committed to ridding our planet of nuclear weapons and preventing such atrocities as happened at Hiroshima, there is one thing we must do…
During my eight years in the White House, every nuclear weapons proliferation issue we dealt with was connected to a nuclear reactor program’
(Former US Vice President Al Gore)
Nuclear power and nuclear weapons go hand in hand - always have, always will. Yet we do not need either of them. Eradicating the first is needed to eradicate the second.
From the first experimental reactors in the US and UK built in the 1950s to the latest in Iran and North Korea, the legacy of human suffering and environmental destruction will be with us for generations. That’s an insulting tribute to the memory of those who died at Hiroshima. Turning away from nuclear power and, in turn, nuclear weapons should be their true lasting legacy and memorial.
Read more today…
- Japan Today: Hiroshima mayor urges support for 'Obamajority' on nuclear-free world
