Oslo:
Japan's atomic bomb survivors' organization, Nippon Hidankyo, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday for calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, which have reemerged as a threat 80 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Terumi Tanaka, a 92-year-old Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor and one of Japan Hidankyo's three co-chairs, called for “government action to achieve” a world free of nuclear weapons.
The award comes at a time when countries like Russia, which has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, are increasingly posing nuclear threats.
“I feel infinitely saddened and angry that the 'nuclear taboo' could be broken,” Tanaka told dignitaries wearing traditional Norwegian bunads and Japanese kimono at Oslo City Hall. ” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly made nuclear threats as he pushes for war with Ukraine. In November, he signed a law lowering the standards for using nuclear weapons.
A few days later, in an attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the Russian military fired a new hypersonic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, but in this case a conventional payload.
Nippon Hidankyo relies on the testimonies of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as “atomic bomb survivors,'' to work to rid the earth of weapons of mass destruction.
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burnt corpse
Tanaka was 13 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, the epicenter of which was just 3 kilometers west of his home. Five members of his family were killed.
He was reading a book on the second floor when the atomic bomb was dropped.
“I heard an explosion, and suddenly I saw a bright white light, everything was enveloped, and everything went silent,” he recalled.
“I was really surprised. I felt like my life was in danger.”
As he rushed to the first floor, two glass doors blown out by the explosion fell on him, and although the glass did not break, he lost consciousness.
Three days later, he and his mother went to look for relatives. It was then that they realized the scale of the disaster.
“When we reached the ridge beyond the hill, we could look down on the city. Only then did we see that there was nothing left. Everything was charred black.”
He saw seriously injured people fleeing the city and burnt bodies lying on the roadside. He and his mother cremated his aunt's body “with their own hands.”
“I was numb and couldn't feel anything.”
The status of Nippon Hidankyo is declining year by year. The Japanese government still lists approximately 106,800 “atomic bomb survivors” who are still alive. Their average age is 85 years old.
“Keep the nuclear taboo”
For Western countries, nuclear threats also come from North Korea, which has increased its ballistic missile tests, and from Iran, which is suspected of aiming to develop nuclear weapons, although it denies it.
Nine countries currently possess nuclear weapons: Britain, China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United States, and, unofficially, Israel.
“There is no doubt that our movement played a major role in creating the 'nuclear taboo,'” Tanaka said.
“However, there are still 12,000 nuclear warheads left on Earth today, 4,000 of which are operationally deployed and ready for immediate launch.”
In 2017, 122 governments negotiated and adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), but the document is considered largely symbolic as no nuclear-weapon states have signed it.
All ambassadors in Oslo were invited to Tuesday's ceremony, but the only nuclear-armed states in attendance were Britain, France, India, Pakistan and the United States. According to the Nobel Institute, Russia, China, Israel and Iran did not attend.
Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman Jørgen Watne Fridnes expressed concern that the world was entering a “new, more unstable nuclear age” and said: “Nuclear war could destroy our civilization. “There is,” he warned.
“Today's nuclear weapons…have far more destructive power than the two bombs used against Japan in 1945. They instantly killed millions of us and left many more to die. “It could cause serious damage and catastrophic disruption to the climate,” he warned.
The Nobel laureates in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics then received their awards from Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf at a separate ceremony in Stockholm, followed by a gathering of around 1,250 guests. A dinner party was held.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
