SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
30-strong Japan A-bomb delegation to collect Nobel prize
Tokyo, Dec 2 (AFP) Dec 02, 2024
Japanese atomic bomb survivors' group Nihon Hidankyo said Monday a 30-strong delegation will collect its Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo after a crowd-funding campaign to pay their travel costs.

Those going to the December 10 ceremony will include group co-chair Terumi Tanaka, 92, who witnessed the 1945 Nagasaki bombing as a child, as well as other survivors and their children.

With money provided by the Nobel Committee not enough to cover the travel expenses of such a large delegation, the group launched a crowd-funding campaign, which has so far raised over 36 million yen ($240,000).

Hidankyo member Jiro Hamasumi, 78, told reporters on Monday that the group was "very surprised" that the campaign raised 10 million yen on the first day alone.

"I'm delighted to say that our delegation will be able to go," Hamasumi said.

He was in his mother's womb when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

His father, who was at work just a few hundred metres (yards) from the epicentre, was killed.

"I hope I can speak from my own experience (in Oslo) about our desire not to see another victim, and that nuclear weapons must never be used," Hamasumi said.

The grassroots anti-nuclear organisation was established in 1956 and is the only nationwide association of A-bomb survivors, who are known as hibakusha.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee nominated Nihon Hidankyo "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again".

Around 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and 74,000 others in Nagasaki three days later on August 9, 1945.

Survivors suffered from radiation sickness and longer-term effects including elevated risks of cancer.

The bombings, the only times nuclear weapons have been used in history, were the final blow to imperial Japan and its brutal rampage across Asia. It surrendered on August 15, 1945.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
SPHEREx completes first full sky infrared map of the cosmos
CoDICE instrument returns first-light particle data for IMAP mission
Webb maps carbon rich atmosphere on distorted pulsar planet

24/7 Energy News Coverage
The Quantum Age will be Powered by Fusion
Physicists map axion production paths inside deuterium tritium fusion reactors
Hybrid excitons speed ultrafast energy transfer at 2D organic interface

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
SDA expands Tracking Layer satellite awards and related missile defense contracts
Space Systems Command activates System Delta 80 for assured space access
Rheinmetall ICEYE Space Solutions to provide SAR reconnaissance data to German military

24/7 News Coverage
Philosopher argues AI consciousness may remain unknowable
Climate driven model explores Neanderthal and modern human overlap in Iberia
Economic losses from natural disasters down by a third in 2025: Swiss Re



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.