77 years since the Hiroshima atomic disaster

The Secretary General of the UN, Anthony Guterres, warned this Saturday in Hiroshima that humanity “plays with a loaded gun” due to the nuclear proliferation and to the open sources of conflict, on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of that Japanese city.

“The only thing that separates us from the apocalypse is an error, a misunderstanding or a miscalculation,” Guterres said during his speech at the ceremony in memory of the approximately 140,000 fatalities left by the first atomic attack in historyexecuted by the US Air Forces on August 6, 1945.

Guterres participated in the event for the 77th anniversary of the tragedy together with the Japanese Prime Minister, fumio kishidathe mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, representatives of 98 countries and institutions and “hibakusha” or survivors of the nuclear bombardment. The UN Secretary General underlined the risk of a repetition of the horrors of Hiroshima due to the more than 13,000 atomic weapons currently in existence in the world and the crises with “nuclear components“such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the situation on the Korean peninsula or the Middle East.

“Signs of Hope”

He pointed out, however, that there are “signs of hope” such as the tenth review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) being held at the United Nations since the beginning of the month, and whose members he asked “to work urgently to remove all stockpiles that threaten our future.

The Japanese Prime Minister also stressed that the move towards a world free of nuclear weapons “seems to slow down”, to which he appealed from Hiroshima to “stand up and commit to never repeating a similar tragedy.”

Kishida reiterated that Japan will respect his anti-nuclear triple pledge (neither develop, possess nor allow the deployment of this type of weapon in its territory), despite the fact that certain voices from its ruling party have called for a rethinking of these principles in the face of escalating tensions in the Asia-Pacific.

“Japan will reconcile the regional security situation with its desire to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons,” said the Japanese leader, who pointed to the G7 leaders’ summit scheduled for next May in Hiroshima as an opportunity to promote nuclear non-proliferation. .

“LittleBoy”

The ceremony was held this Saturday at the Peace Park in this city in western Japan, located near the hypocenter of the devastating nuclear explosion, and began with a minute of silence at 8:15 a.m. local time (23:15 p.m. GMT). Friday).

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That was the exact time at which the B-29 Enola Gay of the US Air Force launched the “Little Boy” 77 years ago, as the first nuclear device used in a war was baptized.

Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the US dropped a second nuclear bomb on the city of Nagasaki, leading to Japan’s capitulation six days later and ending World War II.