Nagaski's mayor yesterday pleaded for an end to conflicts raging worldwide on the 80th anniversary of the US atom bomb attack which destroyed the Japanese city.
‘Eighty years since that day, who could have imagined our world would become like this? Immediately cease from disputes in which force is met with force,’ Shiro Suzuki said during a solemn ceremony at Nagasaki peace park.
He added: ‘To make Nagasaki the last atomic bombing site for ever, we will go hand-in-hand with global citizens and devote our efforts toward the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realisation of everlasting world peace.’
The US dropped the bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, killing 70,000 by the end of that year, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima that killed 140,000.
It forced Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945, ending the war.
