Nagasaki’s twin bells ring in unison for first time in 80 years to mark atomic bombing | Japan

The twin cathedral bells met in Nagasaki for the first time in 80 years on Saturday and commemorated the moment the city was destroyed by an American atomic bomb.

The two bells stole at the Immaculate Concept Cathedral, also called the Urakami Cathedral, at 11.02, three days after a nuclear attack on Hiroshima, on August 9, 1945.

The imposing Redbrick building with twin bell towers above a hill was rebuilt in 1959 after it was almost completely destroyed in the terrible explosion, just a few hundred meters away. Only one of the two bells was rescued from the rubble and left the North Tower silent. With the funds of the US Churchgoers, a new bell was built and restored in the tower.

After heavy torrential rains on Saturday morning, Yağmur stopped shortly before the moment of silence and the ceremony, when the Mayor of Nagasaki called the Mayor of Nagasaki Shiro Suzuki to “stop the armed conflicts immediately”.

“Eighty years have passed and who could have imagined the world?” he said. “A crisis that can threaten the survival of humanity like a nuclear war is approaching every one of us living on this planet.”

Approximately 74,000 people were killed in more than 140,000 southwestern harbor cities killed in Hiroshima.

Days later, on August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered and marked the end of the Second World War.

Historians argued whether the bombings were ultimately saving life by ending the conflict and preventing them from invading a place. However, these calculations mean very little for survivors, HibakushaMany of them have fought for decades of physical and psychological trauma and stamping for decades.

Hiroshi Nishioka, a 93 -year -old survivor, just three kilometers away from the bomb exploded, talked about the fear that he witnessed the ceremony participants as a young man.

“Even the lucky ones [who were not severely injured] Gradually he began to bleed from the gums and lose his hair and died one after the other, ”he remembered.“ Although the war was over, the atomic bomb brought invisible terror. “

Atsuko Higuchi, a resident of Nagasaki, said that everyone “happy” that everyone will remember the victims of the city.

“Instead of thinking that these events belong to the past, we should remember that these are real events,” 50 -year -old said.

Kenichi Yamamura, the chief priest of the Uraqami Cathedral, said that the restoration of the bell has “shows the greatness of humanity”.

“This is not to forget the wounds of the past, but to take action to recognize and repair and rebuild them, and to work together for peace while doing so,” he said.

He also sees the bells as a message to the world, shaken by multiple conflicts and caught a crazy new arms race.

Uz We should not respond to violence against violence, rather, with our lifestyle, we must show how meaningless it is to get someone else’s life, ”he said.

Approximately 100 countries will attend this year’s commemoration ceremonies, including Russia, which has not been invited since 2022 Ukraine invasion. Israel, who was not invited to the war in Gaza last year, joined Israel.

An American University Professor who participated in the Manhattan project, which developed his first nuclear weapons, pioneered the Bell project.

During his research in Nagasaki, a Japanese Christian said he wanted to hear the two bells of the cathedral ring together throughout his life.

James Nolan, a professor of sociology at Williams College in Massachusetts, inspired by the idea, started a series of conferences on the atomic bombs in the United States, especially in churches, in the United States. He managed to collect $ 125,000 from American Catholics to finance the new bell.

When Nolan was introduced in Nagasaki in spring, he said, “The reactions were great. The word literally had tears, Nolan said Nolan.