Survivor of atomic bomb recalls its horrors in Nobel Peace Prize speech

Associated Press Oslo: A 92-year-old Japanese man who lived through the American atomic bombing of Nagasaki described on Tuesday the agony he witnessed in 1945, including the charred corpses of his loved ones and the ruins of his city, as he accepted this year's Nobel Peace Prize on his organisation's behalf. The prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of Japanese atomic bombing survivors who have worked for nearly 70 years to maintain a taboo around the use of nuclear weapons.

The weapons have grown exponentially in power and number since being used for the first and only time in warfare by the United States on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. The bombings pushed Japan to surrender to the Allies. They killed some 210,000 people by the end of 1945, but the full death toll from radiation is certainly higher. As the survivors reach the twilight of their lives, they are grappling with the fear that the taboo against using the weapons appears to be weakening. It was a concern expressed by the 92-year-old-survivor, Terumi Tanaka, who delivered the acceptance lecture in Oslo's City Hall to an audience that included Norway's royal family.

“The nuclear superpower Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine, and a cabinet member of Israel, in the midst of its unrelenting attacks on Gaza in Palestine, even spoke of the possible use of nuclear arms,” Tanaka said.”I am infinitely saddened and angered that the nuclear taboo threatens to be broken.” That concern drove the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award this year's prize to the Japanese organisation, though it had honoured other nuclear non-proliferation work in the past. “No country that possess nuclear weapons appear interested in nuclear disarmament,” he said.