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A young couple take a snapshot in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan. The dome is the epicentre of the world's first atomic bomb blast. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)
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INDEPTH: HIROSHIMA ANNIVERSARY
60 years after the bomb
CBC News Online | August 4, 2005
Sixty years have passed since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It and the attack
on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, killed 200,000 and 70,000 people respectively.
The attack signified the end of the Second World War, and it was the first and
last time atomic weapons were used in conflict.
Today, Hiroshima is an industrial city with a population of 1.1 million people.
The former Trade Promotion Hall , now known as The Bomb Dome, serves as a memorial
to the attack. The nearby Peace Memorial Park features a Flame of Peace, which
activists promise will burn as long as there are nuclear weapons.
Thousands of peace activists marked the anniversary with a march in downtown
Hiroshima, calling for a global ban on nuclear weapons.
Nuclear disarmament talks at the United Nations collapsed in early 2005, and
negotiations with North Korea are making slow progress.
There are approximately 85,000 Hiroshima survivors still living in the city.
They are known as "hibakusha", and try their best to keep memories
alive. Some have visited elementary schools to tell their story. Many bear scars.
In recent years these activities have been discouraged.
Once a mandatory subject, the study of Hiroshima as part of peace education is
disappearing from Japanese school curriculums.
In 2003 the Enola Gay, the plane used in the Hiroshima attack, was displayed
at the National Air and Space Museum in Virginia. The plaque below the plane
states it was used in Second World War combat and it dropped the first atomic
weapon used in combat. There is no mention of the lives lost in the attack.
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