Eighty years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in Japan, survivors are making an urgent plea to the world: never forget the human cost of nuclear weapons, and take decisive action to ensure such devastation is never repeated.
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025, under grey skies at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba joined officials from around the globe to mark the somber anniversary of the day the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on a civilian population.
The bomb, dropped on August 6, 1945, killed more than 140,000 people, many instantly, and others from radiation exposure in the weeks and months that followed. Hiroshima was reduced to rubble, and its survivors, known as hibakusha, have carried the burden of memory for generations.
Among those present at the memorial was 86-year-old Shingo Naito, who was just six years old when the bomb fell. That day, he lost his father and two younger siblings.
“My father was badly burned and blinded by the blast. His skin was hanging from his body, and he could not even hold my hand,” Naito recalled in an interview with the BBC. “That image has never left me.”
Now, Naito shares his story with younger generations in Hiroshima. A group of local students is working with him to transform his testimony into artwork, part of a growing effort to preserve survivors’ memories through visual storytelling.
“I want them to carry our pain and our hope,” he said. “When the last survivors are gone, these stories must live on.”
Saitoshi Tanaka, 89, is another survivor who has lived with the long-term effects of radiation exposure, battling cancers for most of his life. Watching recent wars unfold in Gaza and Ukraine, he says the images of destruction bring back haunting memories.
’’Every time I see the mountains of rubble, the ruined cities, and the women and children fleeing in fear, it all brings back the horrors I lived through,” he said.
“We are still living in a world surrounded by nuclear weapons, each capable of wiping out humanity many times over.”
During the memorial ceremony, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui warned about the “dangerous increase in global military build-up” and called on Japan to officially approve the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), an international agreement to ban all nuclear weapons that came into effect in 2021.
“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” Matsui said. “They threaten to topple the peace-building frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct.”
He also expressed deep concern over the status of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote peaceful nuclear energy. Matsui warned that the NPT is now “on the brink of dysfunctionality.”
“Japan is the only nation that has suffered an atomic bombing in war,” he added. “The Japanese government represents a people who aspire for genuine and lasting peace.”
While more than 70 countries have ratified the TPNW, nuclear-armed nations such as the United States, Russia, and China have not, arguing that nuclear deterrence remains essential for global security.
Japan, despite its tragic history, has also declined to join, citing the protection it receives under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, a position that frustrates many survivors.
“How can we, who know this pain, rely on the same weapons that destroyed our families?” Tanaka asked. “There is no safety in terror.”
Organizations like Nihon Hidankyo, Japan’s leading atomic bomb survivors’ group, continue to press for disarmament and education. The group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024 for its decades-long campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons and preserve the voices of hibakusha.
As the world grows more divided and full of conflict, survivors like Naito and Tanaka stay strong in their mission: to remind future generations that peace doesn’t happen by itself, it is a choice we must all work hard to keep.
