Mayor of Japanese city used the anniversary of US bombing to urge the world to stop armed conflicts, warning nuclear war was ‘looming’ over everyone
Twin cathedral bells rang in unison in Nagasaki for the first time in 80 years on Saturday, commemorating the moment the city was destroyed by an American atomic bomb.
The two bells rang out at Immaculate Conception cathedral, also called the Urakami cathedral, at 11.02am, the moment the bomb was dropped on 9 August 1945, three days after a nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
The imposing redbrick building, with its twin bell towers atop a hill, was rebuilt in 1959 after it was almost completely destroyed in the monstrous explosion just a few hundred metres away. Only one of its two bells was recovered from the rubble, leaving the northern tower silent. With funds from US churchgoers, a new bell was constructed and restored to the tower.
After heavy downpours on Saturday morning, the rain stopped shortly before a moment of silence and ceremony in which Nagasaki mayor Shiro Suzuki urged the world to “stop armed conflicts immediately”.
