Serhii Plokhy

There’s one way to avoid repeating the horrors of Hiroshima

(Photo by Los Angeles Examiner/USC Libraries/Corbis via Getty Images)

This weekend the leaders of the G7 countries meet in Hiroshima to discuss the most urgent issues facing the world today. The Russian aggression against Ukraine and the ban on the use of the nuclear weapons are among the key items on the summit’s agenda. When I visited Hiroshima last month the war in Ukraine and the nuclear issues were also at the top of my personal list of concerns. At the site of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, also known as the Atomic Dome, a visitor can hardly avoid being taken aback or evenshocked by the contrast between the stark skeleton of a magnificent building destroyed by the nuclear explosion of 1945 and the beauty of its surroundings. When I visited the site, the lawn was resplendent with the colours of spring – green leaves on the bushes and blossoming red, pink, and white roses. Beyond the park is a prosperous modern city bursting with life. 

A Japanese television reporter who accompanied me to the dome spoke about visiting American students who reflected on the horror of the atomic blast but noted that at least the bomb had exploded in the middle of the park, with few people around. The sad irony is that there was no park on that spot in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped on 6 August,1945. The Industrial Exhibition Hall – the future Atomic Dome – stood approximately 160 meters away from the epicenter of the explosion. More than 140,000 people were killed by the blast and radiation. 

As I listened to the story, my thoughts went back to Chernobyl, the site of another nuclear disaster that I had visited a few years earlier. The comparison could not have been more striking. At Chernobyl nature also revived, but the people did not return. The nearby city of Prypiat is still a ghost town decades after the explosion and will probably remain in that condition for generations to come.

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