Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi emphasized Japan¡¯s commitment to its long-held nonnuclear principles in a speech Thursday in Hiroshima, paying tribute to those killed and injured 81 years after the city was devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb.
The prime minister joined hibakusha, bereaved families, foreign and local representatives at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, where participants observed a minute of silence at 8:15 a.m., the exact time when the bomb exploded over the southwestern city on Aug. 6, 1945, leaving an estimated 140,000 dead by the end of that year. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki,?leading to another 74,000 fatalities by the end of the year.
¡°The devastation caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the indescribable suffering endured by so many people, must never be repeated,¡± Takaichi said in a speech.
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