A Nobel Prize and a reckoning for Japan’s atomic bomb survivors, 80 years later

TOKYO - Cities blasted to rubble. Burnt bodies and flayed flesh. Invisible waves of radiation coursing through the air. And the indelible image of a mushroom cloud.

The atomic bombs dropped by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed the world what an apocalypse looks like. Tens of thousands of people died in the immediate aftermath.

But some emerged from the devastation. Struggling with survivors’ guilt and sick with illnesses caused by the radiation, they were shunned for years as living reminders of the human capacity to engineer horror.

On Oct 11, Nihon Hidankyo, a collective of Japanese atomic bomb survivors, was

awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize

for its decades-long campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

The group was honoured by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for “demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.

The survivors of the bombings – more than 100,000 are still living – “help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons”, said Mr Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the committee chair.

The Nobel committee noted that although nuclear weapons have not been used since the Japanese cities were attacked by American bombers in August 1945, nuclear powers are modernising their arsenals, and other countries are trying to join the nuclear club.

The committee did not name any specific nations. But President Vladimir Putin of Russia has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. And concerns are growing about nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and Asia.

“At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves that nuclear weapons are the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen,” the committee said.

It was nearly 80 years ago, on Aug 6 and 9, 1945, that American B-29 bombers dropped two atomic weapons, code named Little Boy and Fat Man, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Nobel committee said that about 120,000 people were killed by the detonations. A similar number died from burns, injuries and radiation-induced diseases in the months and years that followed.

Mr Toshiyuki Mimaki, who is 82 and the chairman of Nihon Hidankyo, said on Oct 11 that his foremost wish was for the world to “please abolish nuclear weapons while we are alive”. NYTIMES