Hiroshima remembers the dead on the 79th anniversary of the first atomic bomb – Observer

The Japanese city of Hiroshima on Tuesday remembered the approximately 140,000 victims of the first atomic bomb, with a minute of silence observed at the exact moment the attack occurred, 79 years ago.

The tribute was held at 8:15 am (00:15 in Lisbon) in the Peace Park, located near the center of the nuclear explosion, after the bell that marks the bombing every year was rung.

It was at this moment, on August 6, 1945, that the U.S. Air Force B-29 Enola Gay dropped the Little Boythe name given by the United States to the first nuclear bomb dropped on an enemy target.

The minute’s silence was observed during a ceremony attended by Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and to which foreign dignitaries from more than a hundred countries were invited, as well as representatives of international organizations such as the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Organization.

The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, in western Japan, had a power equivalent to 13 kilotons of TNT and exploded about 600 meters above sea levelvery close to where the Peace Park is located today, causing the immediate death of about 80 thousand people.

The death toll rose to nearly 140,000 by the end of 1945, although the exact number of casualties caused by the bombing and the subsequent effects of radiation are unknown.

On August 9, 1945, three days after the attack on Hiroshima, the US dropped a second nuclear bomb over the city of Nagasaki, leading to Japan’s surrender six days later and ending World War II.

The two Japanese cities remain to this day the only targets of nuclear bombings against civilian targets in human history.