Hiroshima 75th anniversary a warning to the world

The sun exploded that bright morning in the Japanese city of Hiroshima 75 years ago, as the world’s first atomic bomb levelled it and left 140,000 dead – killed instantly or dying later from radiation poisoning.

Robert Oppenheimer, chief physicist on the programme which developed the US weapon, was so stunned by the power unleashed by the first test the month before, that he quoted lines from Hindu scripture: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

A second bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima and forced Japanese Emperor Hirohito to surrender and bring World War II to an end. Even now, a bitter debate rages about whether the use of the bomb was justified – because a conventional military campaign would have cost hundreds of thousands of American lives – or whether it was a war crime.

What the two bombings did do was show how horrific nuclear weapons are – and fear of incinerating the planet in an all-out war kept US and Soviet fingers off nuclear triggers during the Cold War. But the danger isn’t over. There are still thousands of warheads out there.

That’s why Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be a constant warning to all humanity.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.