On the eve of the anniversary today of Nagasaki's devastation 60 years ago by the "Fat Man" atomic bomb, a steady stream of tourists flowed past the horrific exhibits at the city's memorial museum.
There is a clock, its glass smashed and bent hands frozen at exactly 11:02, the moment of the blast. There are photos, in black and white and in color, of the human toll. Chipped statues from a Catholic cathedral, once the largest in the Orient, line one wall.
But just a short walk away at Ground Zero, where a simple monolith stands in a small, dusty park, Ritsuko Yamasaki, offered a common lament.
PHOTO: EPA
"Our city is always in the shadow of Hiroshima," said Yamasaki, 70, who sells ice cream cones at the blast site. "Look at this. Tourists come here and ask me, `Where is the monument?' Hiroshima's is so much bigger. We need something like that, too."
Nagasaki's commemoration today will be a relatively quiet event.
Unlike Hiroshima, where more than 55,000 people crowded into Peace Memorial Park last week for a solemn memorial, officials here expected about 6,000 people to join in. The ceremony itself is almost the same -- like Hiroshima, a moment of silence will be observed, followed by speeches from the mayor and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Yesterday, hundreds of labor union representatives staged a peace march through the city, and small gatherings were held to remember the dead. On each of the several cenotaphs in and around Nagasaki's peace park were draped thousands of colorful paper cranes, which are believed to ease the pain of the dead.
Hojun Kubo, 79, said he comes to Nagasaki from his home in central Japan every year.
"I don't know anyone who died here," he said, after placing a string of cranes on Ground Zero. "But it was my generation that fought the war. Many of my friends died fighting. I come here because of that. It seems people forget about Nagasaki. I don't want that to happen."
Nagasaki's tragedy almost never happened.
Three days after the Enola Gay dropped the "Little Boy" bomb on Hiroshima, killing at least 140,000 in the world's first atomic bomb attack, another bomber, Bock's Car, took off to deliver the second A-bomb.
It wasn't bound for Nagasaki, however.
Bock's Car's primary target was the nearby city of Kokura. But when it arrived, the city was hidden under a thick cover of smoke. The plane circled three times, then changed course for Nagasaki, where it also encountered thick clouds.
With dwindling fuel, the pilot nearly turned around -- but then the clouds broke.
About 80,000 people died in the blast or because of related injuries or diseases in the months after.
"It's just mind-boggling that a single bomb could wipe out this city," tourist Naoto Otake said as he stood before a full-scale model of Fat Man at the museum. The bomb stood 3.25m tall, and weighed 4.08 tonnes.
Other than the many small monuments around town, few signs of the devastation remain.
Today, Nagasaki, which has a population of about 420,000, has instead become a popular tourist destination, known for its Chinatown, one of the largest in Japan, and its vaguely European flair.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS