The mayor of Hiroshima has led calls for the world’s most powerful countries to abandon nuclear deterrence, at a ceremony to mark 80 years since the city was destroyed by an American atomic bomb.
As residents, survivors and representatives from 120 countries gathered at the city’s peace memorial park on Wednesday morning, Kazumi Matsui warned that the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East had contributed to a growing acceptance of nuclear weapons.
“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said in his peace declaration, against the backdrop of the A-bomb dome – one of the few buildings that survived the attack eight decades ago.
“They threaten to topple the peace-building frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct,” he added, before urging younger people to recognise that acceptance of the nuclear option could cause “utterly inhumane” consequences for their future.
Despite the global turmoil, he said, “we, the people, must never give up. Instead, we must work even harder to build civil society consensus that nuclear weapons must be abolished for a genuinely peaceful world.”
As applause rang out, white doves were released into the sky, while an eternal “flame of peace” burned in front of a cenotaph dedicated to victims of the world’s first nuclear attack.
The ceremony is seen as the last opportunity for significant numbers of ageing hibakusha – survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – to pass on first-hand warnings of the horror of nuclear warfare.
Just under 100,000 survivors are still alive, according to recent data from the health ministry, with an average age of just over 86.
On Wednesday, the names and other personal details of more than 4,940 registered survivors who have died in the past year were added to a registry kept inside the cenotaph, bringing the number of deaths attributed to the Hiroshima bombing to almost 350,000.
In his peace declaration, Matsui recalled how one woman had begged for water as fires raged through the city after the Enola Gay, a US B-29 bomber, dropped a 15-kiloton uranium bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people by the end of the year.
“Decades later, a woman who heard that plea still regretted not giving the young woman water,” he said. “ She told herself that fighting for the elimination of nuclear weapons was the best she could do for those who died.”
Three days after the devastation in Hiroshima, the US dropped a plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people. While the debate continues over whether the attacks were morally and militarily justified, many Americans continue to believe they forced Japan’s surrender on 15 August.
Nihon Hidankyo, a nationwide network of A-bomb survivors that last year won the Nobel peace prize, said humanity was in a race against time to challenge the US and Russia – which together possess 90% of the world’s 12,000-plus nuclear warheads – and other nuclear states.
“We don’t have much time left, while we face a greater nuclear threat than ever,” it said in a statement. “Our biggest challenge now is to change nuclear weapons states … even just a little.”
At 8.15am, the exact time the bomb detonated, Hiroshima observed a moment of silence. Many attendees lowered their heads and closed their eyes, some clasping their hands together in prayer.
The advanced age of the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs has become a defining theme of the anniversary.
Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, a wheelchair user who visited the park early in the morning with her grandson, told reporters her parents and grandparents had died as a result of the Hiroshima attack.
“My grandfather died soon after the bombing, while my father and mother both died after developing cancer,” she said. “My parents-in-law also died, so my husband couldn’t see them again when he came back from battlefields after the war. People are still suffering.”
Russia apparently did not send an official to Wednesday’s ceremony, but its ally, Belarus, attended for the first time in four years. Taiwanese and Palestinian representatives were there for the first time, Japanese media reports said.
Successive Japanese governments have faced criticism for refusing to ratify a 2021 treaty to ban the possession and use of nuclear weapons. Dozens of countries have signed the treaty, but they do not include any of the recognised nuclear powers or countries, including Japan, that are dependent on the US nuclear umbrella.
After laying a wreath in front of the cenotaph, the prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, did not mention the treaty but said it was Japan’s “mission” as the only country to have been attacked by nuclear weapons to lead global efforts towards disarmament.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said in a statement that “the very weapons that brought such devastation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are once again being treated as tools of coercion”. Guterres added, however, that Nihon Hidankyo’s Nobel prize was cause for hope, adding that “countries must draw strength from the resilience of Hiroshima and from the wisdom of the hibakusha”.
