6 August 2019
By Bryan Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
Credit: Eoin Murphy
Members of the Green Party in Cork today held a remembrance event to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the day the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing over 100,000 Japanese civilians. It was followed by the bombing of Nagasaki, with both bombings accounting for well over 200,000 deaths, and directly lead to the end of the Second World War in the Pacific. It marks the last time to date that nuclear arms were dropped in combat.
Speaking after the event, Green Party Councillor Colette Finn said that it’s important to remember these events lest they be repeated. “It’s important still to mark that terrible event so that we don’t repeat it. 74 years ago hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed in an instant, while walking to work or eating their breakfast. We must work together to create a world where such an atrocity will not happen again.”
A permanent memorial for the victims of the two bombings is present alongside the memorial for soldiers of the First World War on the Grand Parade, next to Electric (bar). People are encouraged to leave flowers, or mark the anniversary of the bombings in their own way.
