The Hibakusha’s 75-Year Journey to Ban Nuclear Weapons
NOBEL LAUREATES, 10 Aug 2020
6/9 Aug 2020 – A nuclear attack is almost too horrific to imagine. But take a few minutes and try to walk in the footsteps of the hibakusha, the survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Follow their journey from 6 and 9 August 1945 through a lifetime of advocacy to eliminate nuclear weapons.
ICAN is grateful to the 1945 Project for allowing the use of photos and testimonies.
Imagine a blinding light. Then complete darkness. Silence. And then screams.
THE BOMBING
“I was three years old at the time of the bombing. I don’t remember much, but I do recall that my surroundings turned blindingly white, like a million camera flashes going off at once. Then, pitch darkness. I was buried alive under the house, I’ve been told.”
Location: Nagasaki
Distance from hypocenter: 3.4km
Learn more from Yasujiro Tanaka
Maybe you crawl out of the rubble before it crushes you or maybe you are pulled out by an uncle, a neighbour, a stranger. You open your eyes and witness something unlike you’ve ever seen before.
Your home, flattened. Your neighbour’s home, flattened. Your city, burning. Your families’, friends’, neighbours’, classmates’, coworkers’ bodies, burnt. Eyeballs hanging out of their sockets.
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The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons-ICAN is a global civil society coalition working to promote adherence to and full implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The campaign helped bring about this treaty. ICAN was launched in 2007 and counts 541 partner organizations in 103 countries as of 2019. The campaign received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”
Tags: Alamogordo New Mexico, Atomic Weapons, Hibakusha, ICAN-International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Manhattan Project, Nuclear Abolition, Nuclear Arms in Space, Nuclear Ban Treaty, Nuclear Disaster, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear club, Nuclear war, Pentagon, USA, WMD, WWII
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