World

Nagasaki Remembers Grim Day

August 9, 2000 / 8:57 AM EDT / AP

The haunting wail of an air raid siren on Wednesday marked the day 55 years ago when the Japanese city of Nagasaki was demolished in the world's second atomic bomb attack.

Thousands of people at an annual ceremony observed 60 seconds of silent prayer at 11:02 a.m., the moment that the United States dropped the bomb on Aug. 9, 1945. The attack killed 70,000 people.

A bomb dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier killed about 140,000 people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, bringing World War II to an end.

Standing near where the Nagasaki bomb exploded, many of the estimated 28,000 participants at the city's Peace Park bowed their heads, many holding Buddhist prayer beads between hands clasped in prayer.

Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito urged renewed efforts to eliminate such weapons of mass destruction, amid growing concern that tensions between India and Pakistan, the world's newest nuclear powers, could lead to atomic warfare.

"The people of the Earth must not forget that there are approximately 30,000 nuclear weapons still in existence," Ito said.

In April, Ito criticized the United States in an open letter to President Clinton for not abandoning its nuclear weapons program.

The mayor placed on a stage three books listing 2,603 people whom the city has newly recognized as victims of the bombing in the past year, said city spokeswoman Izumi Sakuma.

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori placed a yellow and white wreath before a memorial to the bomb's victims. "I express my deep sadness to those people who continue to suffer," he said.

In his speech, Mori applauded efforts to establish a global ban on nuclear weapons.

In a ceremony later Wednesday, 1,000 lanterns were released onto the Urakami River running through the city to commemorate bomb victims who died on its banks in a desperate search for water after the intense heat of the attack.

Nagasaki is about 608 miles southwest of Tokyo on the main southern island of Kyushu.

An estimated 30,000 to 50,000 people gathered Sunday in Hiroshima, 430 miles southwest of Tokyo, to commemorate the Aug. 6, 1945 atomic bombing there.