Arab News Japan

TOKYO: YAMADA Reiko, an atomic bomb survivor who was 11 when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by the United States, gave a lecture in central Tokyo on Saturday in order to remind people of the pain and horror experienced by the survivors of the atomic bomb.

 

More than 140,000 people died from that single bomb attack on August 6, 1945.

 

Mrs. Yamada lived 2.5 km from the epicenter of the explosion. She recalled how corpses from the explosion were cremated at her school and that children had found bones when foraging for sweet potatoes. She also recounted how part of her family had been irradiated.

 

During her speech in the Itabashi district of Tokyo, Mrs. Yamada made a wish for a world without nuclear weapons. She urged the three nuclear powers who are taking part in the G7 Summit in Hiroshima and who visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum toimplement an agreement on the abolition of nuclear weapons.

 

Mrs. Yamada began her activity as an anti-nuclear weapons activist after the Castle Bravo atomic bomb nuclear test in the Marshall Islands and Bikini Atoll and she has lectured in American schools about her experience as a survivor of the atomic bombing, even meeting the grandson of President Harry Truman, who authorized the bombing of Hiroshima.

 

While the G7 summit is being held in Hiroshima, Mrs. Yamada’s testimony remains a powerful reminder of a terrible incident in our past that should not be repeated in the future.