Twin cathedral bells rang in unison in Nagasaki for the first time in 80 years on Saturday, commemorating the moment the city was destroyed by an American atomic bomb. The two bells sounded at Immaculate Conception cathedral, also known as Urakami cathedral, at 11.02am, the exact time the bomb was dropped on 9 August 1945, three days after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
The imposing redbrick building, with its twin bell towers atop a hill, was rebuilt in 1959 after being almost completely destroyed in the explosion just a few hundred metres away. Only one of its two bells was recovered from the rubble, leaving the northern tower silent. With funds from US churchgoers, a new bell was constructed and restored to the tower.
After heavy downpours on Saturday morning, the rain stopped shortly before a moment of silence and ceremony in which Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki urged the world to 'stop armed conflicts immediately'. 'Eighty years have passed, and who could have imagined that the world would become like this?' he said. 'A crisis that could threaten the survival of humanity, such as a nuclear war, is looming over each and every one of us living on this planet.'
About 74,000 people were killed in the south-western port city, on top of the 140,000 killed in Hiroshima. Days later, on 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, marking the end of the Second World War. Historians have debated whether the bombings ultimately saved lives by bringing an end to the conflict, but survivors, known as hibakusha, battled decades of physical and psychological trauma.
Hiroshi Nishioka, a 93-year-old survivor who was three kilometres from the bomb's epicentre, told ceremony attenders of the horror he witnessed. 'Even the lucky ones gradually began to bleed from their gums and lose their hair, and one after another they died,' he recalled. 'Even though the war was over, the atomic bomb brought invisible terror.'
The chief priest of Urakami Cathedral, Kenichi Yamamura, said the bell's restoration 'shows the greatness of humanity'. 'It's not about forgetting the wounds of the past but recognising them and taking action to repair and rebuild, and in doing so, working together for peace,' he said. An American university professor, whose grandfather participated in the Manhattan Project, spearheaded the bell project, raising $125,000 from US Catholics.
