Japan commemorates 75th anniversary of US nuclear bombing of Nagasaki

SANAA, Aug 9 (YPA) – Japan will mark the 75th anniversary of the US nuclear attack on the southwestern city of Nagasaki on Sunday as events due to the COVID-19 pandemic are curtailed.

Nagasaki succeeded in reducing the number of participants in the anniversary this year to 500, compared to 5,900 people last year.

Among the participants in the event at Nagasaki Peace Park, survivors of the nuclear bombing, the families of the victims, Nagasaki Mayor Tomhisa Tawi, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

A US B-29 bomber dropped a nuclear bomb over Nagasaki on August nine, 1945, leveling the city and killing tens of thousands instantly.

About 74,000 people had died by the end of that year.

The attack on Nagasaki came three days after the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, in the west of the country, and the bombing and its effects killed 140,000 people.

Among the dead and wounded in the two cities are tens of thousands of Koreans, students from China and Southeast Asia, and American and European prisoners of war.

After six days of nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II.