Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony

By morning, Peace Memorial Park was full again. Survivors, bereaved families, officials, visitors and foreign delegations gathered for the annual ceremony. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was among them, but the defining act was simpler: at 8:15 a.m., the Peace Bell rang, sirens sounded across the city, and the crowd fell silent. In Hiroshima, that minute is not a formality. It stops the city at the precise point of its destruction.

At 8:15 a.m. on 6 August 1945, the American B-29 Enola Gay released the atomic bomb Little Boy over Hiroshima. Forty-three seconds later it detonated about 600 metres above the city. By the end of 1945, about 140,000 people were dead. At the point of detonation, heat and blast obliterated much of central Hiroshima. Fires ignited across the city and quickly spread out of control, consuming much of the area within two kilometres of the hypocentre. For those who survived, the bombing did not end that morning: the hibakusha carried its physical and psychological consequences for the rest of their lives.

That evening, lanterns made by children were floated on the Motoyasu River. The sight was gentle, but the river carried another memory. On the day of the bombing, the burned and dying made for the water in search of relief. Bodies were later recovered from the river in large numbers.

Each year, Hiroshima gathers to mourn the dead, pray for lasting world peace and renew its call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The rituals are quiet: rain on umbrellas, lanterns on the river, silence at 8:15 a.m. Their meaning is not.

All images copyright © Thaddeus Pope. All rights reserved.