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Nagasaki Marks the 71st Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing

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Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue walks to deliver his speech during a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombing of the city at Nagasaki's Peace Park in Nagasaki
Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue walks to deliver his speech during a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombing of the city at Nagasaki's Peace Park in Nagasaki, western Japan, August 9, 2015Reuters Staff—Reuters
By Casey Quackenbush

On the 71st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on Tuesday, the city’s mayor Tomihisa Taue pressed the international community to use its “collective wisdom” to rid the world of nuclear weapons, the Japan Times reports.

“Now is the time for all of you to bring together as much of your collective wisdom as you possibly can, and act,” Taue said at the annual ceremony Peace Park.

The mayor insisted that global participation in the U.N.’s nuclear disarmament frameworks was crucial.

Taue also urged Japan to halt “contradictory” reliance on countries like the United States for nuclear deterrence, according to the Times.

The crowd shared a moment of silence at 11:02 a.m.—the exact time the United States dropped the bomb—to commemorate the victims. Some 74,000 people died, either during the detonation or by the end of the year from injuries and the effects of radiation.

[Japan Times]

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