Nagasaki marks 65th anniversary of US atomic bomb
The Japanese city of Nagasaki marked the 65th anniversary of the US atomic bomb attack yesterday with a record 32 countries attending but no American representative.
A moment of silence was observed at 11:02 a.m., the time when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the southern Japanese city on Aug. 9, 1945, in the waning days of World War II.
Nagasaki was flattened three days after the United States detonated its first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. About 80,000 people were killed in Nagasaki, while some 140,000 people were killed or died within months in Hiroshima. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II.
The Nagasaki ceremony began with a chorus of aging survivors of the atomic bombing and Mayor Tomihisa Taue calling for a nuclear-free world.
"Nagasaki, together with Hiroshima, will continue to make the utmost efforts until the world gets rid of all nuclear weapons," he said.
While the United States sent Ambassador John Roos as the country's first delegate to Friday's memorial ceremony in Hiroshima, it did not dispatch a representative to the Nagasaki anniversary.
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