65th anniversary of Hiroshima, Nagasaki bombing

Posted on August 8, 2010
Filed Under Blogging, General | Leave a Comment

History should never repeat like how it transpired in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sixty years ago. The aftermath of the first atomic bombing by US in Japan is absolutely distressing.

The Hiroshima bombing left 80,000 to 140,000 people killed and 100,000 were seriously injured. The Nagasaki bombing killed 74,000 people and left 75,000 seriously injured.

The story behind this bombing, starting from Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor naval base to Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s surrender, has been one of my greatest interests of history. Movies, documentaries, why even the museums at Washington with details on the Manhattan Project kept me totally immersed.

It just took one bomb to change the course of the Second World War. That incident without question redefined the term ‘super power’. President Truman might have justified his act by saying the atomic bomb saved more lives than what was lost. But what about the causalities? Can we close our eyes to what happened? It is still a subject of great debate.

I just can’t picture myself experiencing it. The second explosion was equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT. The explosion generated heat estimated at 3,900 degrees Celsius and winds that were estimated at 1005 km/h. This blast generated speeds just over 4 times that of a Category 5 hurricane.

Sixty-five years after the destruction of Hiroshima, the United States for the first time sent an envoy to commemorate the bombing. (Wonder, why they took so long to send a rep).

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also attended, becoming the first UN chief to take part in the annual event at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

As I express my solidarity, I also join hands with Church and human rights organisations in demanding a nuke-free world. But if we are inspired by greed and power, this can never be possible.

From a high of 70,000 nuclear weapons in 1986, there are today about 7,500 active warheads and about 23,300 total warheads in the world, according to the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

The US has around 9,400 warheads, with at least 2,600 active, according to the FAS. Russia has about 13,000, of which 4,840 are active.

Let us pray and strive to stop looking at each other with race, color, power and class, but look at each other as people one before God, as His best creation.

Comments

Leave a Reply