Eighty years ago, in the early morning of 6 August 1945, a U.S. B-29 bomber, took off from the Tinian, the Northern Mariana Islands. At 8:15 the new type of bomb it was carrying, exploded nearly 600 meters above the city. Within the first few seconds, a 300 meter fireball began consuming everything in its path. The searing fireball escalated temperatures on the ground to more than 3800° C, vaporising every bit of living tissue. The bomb’s blast wave crushed buildings in every direction. Gasses burned by the fireball created a massive vacuum, and dust and debris rushed in to fill the space. A spindly mushroom cloud rose over the now flattened city of Hiroshima.
Within minutes, 80,000 people died from the first nuclear weapon ever used in warfare. Hundreds of thousands more died from its impact over the coming months. The second attack, on Nagasaki three days later, led to the deaths of 100,000 more. At least 38,000 of the dead were infants and children. Everyone had a name. Everyone had a family. Everyone had a story to tell.
Yet, below the mushroom clouds not everyone was killed. Survivors like Setsuko Thurlow, who was 13 years-old when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima, have spent decades telling the world about what nuclear weapons actually do, in an effort to make sure they are never used again. Delivering the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Setsuko described her experience:
“As I crawled out, the ruins were on fire. Most of my classmates in that building were burned to death alive. I saw all around me utter, unimaginable devastation. Processions of ghostly figures shuffled by. Grotesquely wounded people, they were bleeding, burnt, blackened and swollen. Parts of their bodies were missing. Flesh and skin hung from their bones. Some with their eyeballs hanging in their hands. Some with their bellies burst open, their intestines hanging out. The foul stench of burnt human flesh filled the air. Thus, with one bomb my beloved city was obliterated.”
The stories of what happens under the mushroom clouds are a chilling reminder that nuclear weapons are designed to destroy cities. Designed to cause massive, indiscriminate harm. The bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were tiny compared to what is out there today. Right now, the destructive power of more than 146,500 Hiroshima bombs is ready to be used at a moment’s notice. Remember, there are only about 11 thousand cities worldwide, there is no need to be able to destroy all of them, over and over.
The US attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, following the first nuclear detonation in New Mexico a few weeks before, showed that nuclear weapons cannot be used without causing catastrophic intergenerational harm, and that these weapons violate the basic dictates of public conscience and fundamental human rights. The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the hibakusha, have campaigned for decades for the abolition of nuclear weapons and last December the All Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers Organizations, Nihon Hidankyo, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of this work.
The 80th anniversary of the events that changed their lives forever is the right moment for the leaders of nuclear-armed countries, who congratulated them on their Nobel, to follow through on their words and do what the hibakusha have called on them to do – join the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and disarm. The Dutch government should help, by signing the treaty without delay. The Ban Treaty is steadily growing in strength – half the world’s countries have now signed or ratified it and more will soon follow. These countries reject the deadly doctrine of nuclear deterrence and instead have a reality-based plan to get rid of nuclear weapons.
In light of the geopolitical tensions today, this is not the time to reduce our ambitions. Humanity cannot afford to let another nuclear bomb drop, or another mushroom cloud rise.
