Doves, music, silence

Press, 7 August 1985, Page 10

Doves, music, silence

NZPA-AP Hiroshima About 50,000 people, including survivors of the atomic bomb, fell silent for one minute at 11.15 a.m. yesterday at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park to mark the fortieth anniversary of the world’s first nuclear attack. With a flight of doves, choral music, and a lone tolling bell, the ceremonies recalled the instant 40 years ago when a United Statesmade atomic bomb exploded, killing between 70,000 and 140,000 people and helping to speed the end of World War 11. More than 90 per cent of

the people within Ikm of ground zero died on August 6, 1945 in the blast and heat of the four-ton bomb named “Little Boy.” While bereaved family members tolled a Buddhist bell to summon the spirits, 600 youths fell to the ground in a symbolic “die-in” near the skeleton of the A-Bomb dome, a former industrial promotion hall that was one of the few buildings not obliterated. At the nearby ground zero cenotaph, focal point of the Peace Park, black-clad bereaved deposited the names of several thousand people who died this year

from after-effects of the bomb, and gave an offering of water, the final request of many people who perished in the inferno. The new group of names brings to 138,700 the number of identified Hiroshima Hibakusha, or A-Bomb victims, whose names are inscribed at the cenotaph. The Prime Minister, Mr Yasuhiro Nakasone, addressing the crowd which included mayors from cities in 23 countries, called on the United States and the Soviet Union to speed “realistic development” in nuclear disarmament talks this year.