Japan on Saturday marked the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, with the city’s twin cathedral bells ringing together for the first time since the devastation of 1945.
On August 9, 1945, at 11:02 am, three days after the attack on Hiroshima, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing around 74,000 people.
The commemoration began with heavy morning rain, which cleared shortly before a moment of silence and a ceremony where Nagasaki mayor Shiro Suzuki urged an immediate end to global armed conflicts.
“Eighty years have passed, and who could have imagined that the world would become like this?” he asked.
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“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.”
The bombing came days before Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945, marking the end of World War II.
Hiroshima’s bombing had already killed an estimated 140,000 people.
While historians have debated whether the bombings hastened the war’s end, survivors have long spoken of decades of physical and psychological suffering, as well as the stigma of being hibakusha.
Ninety-three-year-old survivor Hiroshi Nishioka, then a teenager three kilometres from the blast, told attendees, “Even the lucky ones gradually began to bleed from their gums and lose their hair, and one after another they died. Even though the war was over, the atomic bomb brought invisible terror.”
Nagasaki resident Atsuko Higuchi, 50, said, “Instead of thinking that these events belong to the past, we must remember that these are real events that took place.”
The Immaculate Conception Cathedral, located a few hundred metres from the blast, was almost completely destroyed. Only one of its two bells survived, leaving the northern tower silent for decades.
With funds raised from American churchgoers, a new bell was constructed and placed in the northern tower.
On Saturday, both bells rang together at the exact moment the bomb was dropped.
Cathedral chief priest Kenichi Yamamura said the restoration “shows the greatness of humanity”.
He added, “It’s not about forgetting the wounds of the past but recognising them and taking action to repair and rebuild… We should not respond to violence with violence.”
Nearly 100 countries took part in the ceremony, including Israel, which had been absent last year.
Russia remained uninvited following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The bell restoration project was led by James Nolan, a sociology professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, whose grandfather had worked on the Manhattan Project.
Inspired by a Japanese Christian’s wish to hear both bells ring in his lifetime, Nolan raised $125,000 for the effort.
Nolan said the unveiling in spring moved many to tears.
American Catholics he met also expressed compassion upon learning that 8,500 of the parish’s 12,000 faithful were killed in the bombing, despite the community’s centuries-long survival under persecution.
He said donors were inspired by Nagasaki Christians’ “willingness to forgive and rebuild”.
