CND will today be commemorating the 70th anniversary of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On 6th August 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by US air forces. This was the first time a nuclear weapon had ever been used; it killed up to 180,000 people and destroyed 13 square kilometres of the city. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing between 50,000 and 100,000 people. Many were killed immediately by the direct impact of the blast and firestorm and countless more in subsequent months and years by the radiation released by the bombs.
As well as arranging events across the country, CND is represented in Japan, where Chair Dave Webb will be paying our respects at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony. He will be joining the Japanese peace movement and international disarmament campaigners all calling for the same thing – a world free of nuclear weapons.
CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said:
‘We mourn the loss of those who died as a result of these horrific attacks, and remember those whose lives have been blighted by their effects. On this poignant anniversary we must reaffirm our determination that this should never happen again. The British Government can play its part by scrapping Trident and kick starting global abolition.
‘Senior military figures say that Trident is militarily useless and the British public thinks it’s immoral and exorbitantly expensive. Today of all days we should remember what the effects of a nuclear bomb are and realise the only way to stop another detonation – by accident or design – is by getting rid of all of them.’