NAGASAKI: Thousands bowed their heads in prayer in Nagasaki on Saturday to mark the 80th anniversary of the city’s atomic bombing, as the mayor warned that current global conflicts could push the world again into nuclear war.

The western Japanese city was levelled on Aug 9, 1945, when the United States dropped a 10,000-pound plutonium-239 bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man”, instantly killing some 27,000 of the city’s estimated 200,000 people. By the end of 1945, the death toll from acute radiation exposure had reached about 70,000.

Nagasaki’s destruction came three days after a US uranium-235 bomb destroyed Hiroshima. Japan surrendered on Aug 15, ending World War Two. After a moment of silence at 11:02am, marking the time of the blast, Mayor Shiro Suzuki called on leaders to return to the principles of the UN Charter and show a concrete path towards abolishing nuclear weapons, warning that delay was “no longer permissible”. “This is a crisis of human survival that is closing in on each and every one of us,” Suzuki told the crowd, estimated by Japanese media at 2,700. He quoted the testimony of a survivor to illustrate the reality of a nuclear attack: “Around me were people whose eyeballs had popped out... Bodies were strewn about like stones.” “Is it not this ‘global citizen’ perspective that will serve as the driving force behind stitching back together our fragmented world?” Suzuki asked, calling for a solution based on mutual understanding and solidarity.

The US military is believed to have chosen Nagasaki as a target due to its significance as a major industrial and port city. The city’s geographical features, including its hilly terrain, were also thought to concentrate the blast.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2025