Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

Visitors light incense sticks and pray at the Peace Memorial Park ahead of the memorial service to mark the 80th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack, in the city of Hiroshima early on August 6, 2025. Photo by Richard A. Brooks/AFP

Article (news)

Hiroshima

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1754440843431cropped-AFP__20250805__68UF4KF__v1__HighRes__JapanUsNuclearHistoryWwii (2).jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Visitors light incense sticks and pray at the Peace Memorial Park ahead of the memorial service to mark the 80th anniversary of the world&#x27;s first atomic bomb attack, in the city of Hiroshima early on August 6, 2025. Photo by Richard A. Brooks/AFP</span></span></span></div><p>HIROSHIMA, Japan — Japan marked 80 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Wednesday with a ceremony reminding the world of the horrors unleashed, as sabre-rattling between the United States and Russia keeps the nuclear &quot;Doomsday Clock&quot; close to midnight.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/8/5/never-forget-file-footage-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-after-the-atomic-bombings-1208">World File footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombings</a></div><p>A silent prayer was held at 8:15 am (2315 GMT), the moment when US aircraft Enola Gay dropped &quot;Little Boy&quot; over the western Japanese city on August 6, 1945.</p><p>On a sweltering morning, hundreds of black-clad officials, students and survivors laid flowers at the memorial cenotaph, with the ruins of a domed building in the background, a stark reminder of the horrors that unfolded.</p><p>In a speech, Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui warned of &quot;an accelerating trend toward military buildup around the world&quot;, against the backdrop of Russia&#x27;s invasion of Ukraine and the chaos in the Middle East.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/world/2025/8/5/hiroshima-prepares-for-80th-anniversary-of-atomic-bombing-1623">Hiroshima prepares for 80th anniversary of atomic bombing</a></div><p>&quot;These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,&quot; he said.</p><p>&quot;They threaten to topple the peace-building frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct.&quot;</p><p>The final death toll of the Hiroshima attack would hit around 140,000 people, killed not just by the colossal blast and the ball of fire, but also later by the radiation.</p><p>Three days after &quot;Little Boy&quot;, on August 9, another atomic bomb killed 74,000 people in Nagasaki. Imperial Japan surrendered on August 15, bringing an end to World War II.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/spotlight/05/18/23/could-be-your-city-a-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-survivors-warning">&#x27;Could be your city&#x27;: a Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor&#x27;s warning</a></div><p>Today, Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million but the attacks live on in the memories of many.</p><p>On the eve of the ceremony, people began lining up to pay their respects to the victims in front of the cenotaph.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;STILL SUFFERING&#x27;</strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Before dawn on Wednesday, families who had lost loved ones in the attack also came to pray.</p><p>Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, who came in a wheelchair with her grandson, told reporters that her parents and grandparents were bomb victims.</p><p>&quot;My grandfather died soon after the bombing, while my father and mother both died after developing cancer. My parents-in-law also died, so my husband couldn&#x27;t see them again when he came back from battlefields after the war.</p><p>&quot;People are still suffering,&quot; she added.</p><p>Wednesday&#x27;s ceremony was set to include a record of around 120 countries and regions including, for the first time, Taiwanese and Palestinian representatives.</p><p>Nihon Hidankyo, the grassroots organization that last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, is representing the dwindling number of survivors, known as hibakusha.</p><p>As of March, there were 99,130 hibakusha, according to the Japanese health ministry, with the average age of 86.</p><p>&quot;I want foreign envoys to visit the peace memorial museum and understand what happened,&quot; the group&#x27;s co-chair Toshiyuki Mimaki told local media ahead of the commemorations.</p><p>Pope Leo XIV said in a statement that &quot;in our time of mounting global tensions and conflicts&quot;, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained &quot;living reminders of the profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons&quot;.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>YOUNGER GENERATION</strong></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/175444053389505182023-hiroshima.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Smoke billows 20,000 feet above Hiroshima after the atomic bomb is dropped. Image by George R. Caron - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration/File</span></span></span></div><div><br/></div><p>The attacks remain the only time atomic bombs have been used in wartime.</p><p>Kunihiko Sakuma, 80, who survived the blasts as a baby, told AFP he was hopeful that there could eventually be a nuclear-free world.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/overseas/08/06/20/unspeakable-horror-the-attacks-on-hiroshima-and-nagasaki"> &#x27;Unspeakable horror&#x27;: the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki</a></div><p>&quot;The younger generation is working hard for that end,&quot; he said ahead of the ceremony.</p><p>But in January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists&#x27; &quot;Doomsday Clock&quot; shifted to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest in its 78-year history.</p><p>The clock symbolising humanity&#x27;s distance from destruction was last moved to 90 seconds to midnight over Russia&#x27;s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.</p><p>Russia and the United States account for around 90 percent of the world&#x27;s over 12,000 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).</p><p>SIPRI warned in June that &quot;a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened,&quot; with nearly all of the nine nuclear-armed states modernizing their arsenals.</p><p>Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump said that he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines following an online spat with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/overseas/07/29/20/japan-court-recognizes-more-hiroshima-bomb-survivors">Japan court recognizes more Hiroshima bomb survivors</a></div><p>Last month, Matsui urged Trump to visit Hiroshima after the US president likened the 1945 atomic bombings to air strikes on Iran in June.</p><p>&quot;It seems to me that he does not fully understand the reality of the atomic bombings, which, if used, take the lives of many innocent citizens, regardless of whether they were friend or foe, and threaten the survival of the human race,&quot; Matsui said at the time.<strong> </strong></p><div><strong>—By Kyoko Hasegawa, Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEOS</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WcSXJCHOD10?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DRTS8m9gPA8?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>Today, Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million but the attacks live on in the memories of many. </p>

Today, Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million but the attacks live on in the memories of many.

'Still suffering': Hiroshima marks 80 years since atomic bombing with silent prayer

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'Still suffering': Hiroshima marks 80 years since atomic bombing with silent prayer

Agence France-Presse

Published Aug 06, 2025 08:43 AM PHT

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