Tokyo, August 06: Sixty-five years after the destruction of Hiroshima in an atomic inferno, the United States will for the first time send an envoy on Friday to commemorate the bombing that rang in the nuclear age.
Its World War II allies Britain and France, both declared nuclear powers, will also send their first diplomats to the ceremony in the western Japanese city in a sign of support for the goal of nuclear disarmament.
Japan, the only country that has ever been attacked with atomic weapons — first on August 6, 1945 in Hiroshima, and three days later in Nagasaki — has pushed for their abolition ever since.
US ambassador John Roos will attend the ceremony, which is held each year to remember the attack, reflecting US President Barack Obama’s push for a world without nuclear weapons.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will also attend, becoming the first UN chief to take part in the annual event at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
“The only way to ensure that such weapons will never again be used is to eliminate them all,” Ban said on Thursday as he met elderly survivors, known as “hibakusha”, at the site of the Nagasaki blast.
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony will begin at 8am (2300 Thursday GMT, 7am Friday Singapore Time) with the laying of wreaths by Hiroshima mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, Prime Minister Naoto Kan and government officials, as well as representatives of survivors.
Participants will observe a minute’s silence at 8.15 am, the time at which the nuclear bomb was dropped. This will be followed by a speech from Akiba and the release of 1,000 doves in a symbolic gesture for peace.
Roos is expected to lay a wreath at the memorial and the ceremony will close with a choir and an orchestra.
“Little Boy”, the four-tonne uranium bomb detonated over Hiroshima, caused a blinding flash and a fireball hot enough to melt sand into glass and vaporise every human within a one mile (1.6 kilometre) radius.
An estimated 140,000 people died instantly or succumbed to burns and radiation sickness soon after the Hiroshima blast, and more than 70,000 perished as a result of the Nagasaki attack three days later.
Ban is expected to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum after the ceremony and he plans to meet atomic bomb survivors and offer a prayer in front of a cenotaph dedicated to South Korean victims.
Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II in the Pacific.
The United States has never apologised for the twin attacks which, surveys show, most Americans believe were necessary to bring a quick end to the war and avoid a land invasion that could have been more costly.
Others see the attacks as unnecessary and perhaps experimental atrocities.
Many in Japan expect Obama to become the first US president in office to visit Hiroshima when he travels to Japan in for an Asia-Pacific summit in November, after he earlier signalled an intention to do so.
Two decades after the Cold War ended, the United States and Russia still have more than 22,000 nuclear warheads between them, and France, Britain, China, India, Pakistan and Israel have a combined total of about 1,000, according to the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.
The global stockpile has a blast capacity of 150,000 Hiroshima bombs.
–Agencies