Hibakusha make last plea to scrap N-bombs

There are about 1,36,700 survivors of the atom bomb attacks in Japan

Tokyo, Aug. 4: As Japan marks 75 years since the devastating attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the last generation of nuclear bomb survivors are working to ensure their message lives on after them.

The “hibakusha” — literally “person affected by the bomb” — have for decades been a powerful voice calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

There are an estimated 1,36,700 left, many of whom were infants or unborn children at the time of the attacks.

The average age of a survivor now is a little over 83, according to Japan’s health ministry, lending an urgency as they share their testimonies and call for a ban on nuclear weapons.

“What we hibakusha are saying is we can’t repeat (a nuclear attack),” 88year-old Terumi Tanaka, who survived the Nagasaki bombing, said ahead of the anniversaries.

“To this end, we have to let people know what we experienced, for them to hear the facts.” Tanaka was 13 when the bomb hit his hometown.

The attack on Nagasaki killed 74,000 people and came three days after a first bomb devastated the city of Hiroshima, killing 1,40,000. He has spent much of his life sharing his experience, hoping that explaining the horrors of nuclear weapons will convince people to support a ban.

But he recognises that the community of those who lived through the attacks is shrinking, and their message will have to be passed on by others in the decades to come.

“We will all pass away, eventually,” he said.

— AP A security guard pays respects in front of the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims near Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, western Japan.