Nagasaki marks A-bombing anniversary amid nuclear war fears

TOKYO (AP) — Nagasaki paid tribute to the victims of the U.S. atomic bombing 77 years ago on Aug. 9, with the mayor saying Russia's war on Ukraine showed the world that another nuclear attack is not just a worry but “a tangible and present crisis.”

Mayor Tomihisa Taue, in his speech Tuesday at the Nagasaki Peace Park, said nuclear weapons can be used as long as they exist, and their elimination is the only way to save the future of humankind.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and threat of nuclear weapons use came only a month after it and four other nuclear powers pledged in a statement that nuclear war should never be fought, Taue noted.

“This has shown the world that the use of nuclear weapons is not a groundless fear but a tangible and present crisis,” he said. The belief that nuclear weapons can be possessed not for actual use but for deterrence “is a fantasy, nothing more than a mere hope."

The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II and Japan’s nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.

Participants, including diplomats from nuclear states, observed a moment of silence at 11:02 a.m., the moment the bomb exploded above the southern Japanese city on Aug. 9, 1945.

Although Russia last week tried to roll back on Putin’s warning, fears of a third atomic bombing have grown amid Russia’s threats of nuclear attack since its war on Ukraine began in February. Russia last week shelled a Ukrainian city close to Europe's largest nuclear plant.

Japanese officials worry that the conflict may embolden China to be even more assertive in East Asia, and the government...