While Hiroshima has marked 80 years since the American atomic bombardment, Survivor says that “nuclear weapons and humanity cannot coexist”
Looking at Hiroshima’s rooftops, Junji Sarashina, 96, pointed out places in his childhood.
“It was my primary school. Not too far from here,” he said to his granddaughter, showing her in the region.
Sarashina was 16 years old and worked in an anti-aircraft ammunition factory when the United States abandoned the world’s leading atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
“When the bomb fell, I couldn’t see anything,” said Sarashina.
A concrete wall saved Sarashina, but when he emerged from rubble after the explosion, an apocalyptic scene was waiting for him.
“It was then that I saw 1,000, 2,000 people moving quietly. All the injured, burned, no clothes, no hair-just moving trying to escape the fire,” he recalls.
He headed for a resort on the Red Cross and began to help.
“I tried to give a sip of water to the first child, but he left,” said Sarashina.
About 140,000 people died in Hiroshima. Three days later, the United States abandoned a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 70,000 other people. Japan went shortly after, ending the Second World War.
Now, in hills outside Hiroshima, where rice and buckwheat develops, lives a man who has spent decades campaigning against nuclear weapons.
Toshiyuki Mimaki was 3 years old when the bomb exploded, and he still remembers the stench of death. He spent his life campaigning against nuclear weapons.
Last year, its organization, Nihon Hidank-Yo, which means survivors of atomic attacks, won the Nobel Peace Prize. But Mimaki fears that with more than 12,000 nuclear weapons worldwide today, group activism is more critical than ever.
“I want people around the world to know that nuclear weapons and humanity cannot coexist,” said Mimaki.
This message was repeated to the Hiroshima Peace Park to commemorate the 80 -year -old mark, which Sarashina and Mimaki attended.
In his speech, the Japanese Prime Minister said that as the only country to have experienced the horror of the nuclear war devastation, the mission of Japan is to provoke a world without nuclear weapons.
There was a deep concern that stories of less than 100,000 elderly survivors remaining the attacks of the attacks, known as Hibakusha, will disappear with their death. But there is hope that the young generation will make sure that the world will never forget.
“From now on, I want to do my part to share their stories with others who do not know,” said Minami Sato, a 15 -year -old student.
