Politics

Nagasaki prepares to mark 75th anniversary of atomic bomb

By Demófilo Peláez

Tokyo, Aug 8 (efe-epa).- Nagasaki is preparing to commemorate on Sunday the 75th anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on the Japanese city.

Workers on Saturday were finishing the details for the event along with more than 400 chairs in the Peace Park arranged in rows of 20 with a safe distance between them due to pandemic restrictions.

The seats have been laid out in front of a 10-ton bronze statue designed by local sculptor Kitamura Seibo of a man pointing to the sky to symbolize the danger of nuclear weapons.

The atmosphere was calm, with fewer journalists and tourists than at commemorative events three days ago in Hiroshima.

It will be a different situation to the mass commemorations of previous years in Nagasaki due to measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

A temporary installation in front of the cenotaph Memory Undertow by Japanese artist Shinpei Takeda relives survivor testimonies through augmented reality.

The bomb that the United States dropped on Nagasaki, called Fat Man because of its round shape, killed around 75,000 of the 240,000 people who lived in the city at the time.

“If there has not been a third bomb that has destroyed a city in these 75 years, it has been more than anything the contribution of the survivors of the nuclear bombs who have told their stories of what happened,” Nagasaki mayor Tomihisa Taue said in a recent video press conference.

Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui warned at a commemoration ceremony on Thursday that for this “painful past” not to be repeated society must “reject self-centered nationalism and unite in the face of all threats”.

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