9 August 2022

77 years ago, the United States planned to obliterate the Japanese city of Kokura in an atomic bombing, just 3 days after dropping the first ever nuclear weapon used in conflict on Hiroshima. Due to weather conditions, a last minute decision was made to divert aircraft to the city of Nagasaki.

The unique devastation of a nuclear weapon fell on Nagasaki that day. Over 6 square kilometres of the city was levelled, ground temperatures reached 4,000°C, and radioactive rain fell down onto the remains of the city and emerging survivors. 74,000 were killed immediately.

Youth for TPNW delegates to the Youth MSP to the TPNW were deeply honoured and moved to hear from Hibakusha – survivors of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima – including Miyata Takashi, a survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki, earlier this year. In detailing the horrors of the bombing and its effects, Takashi instilled in delegates a unique understanding of these weapons and the need for their elimination, a lesson that Youth for TPNW is deeply grateful for.

Today we remember all of those killed as result of the Nagasaki bombing 77 years ago, and all of those who have died and been affected since. 

We also recommit ourselves, in their memory, to the abolition of these weapons of mass destruction and urge states to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.