Nagasaki mayor backs nuclear ban

The mayor of Nagasaki today called for a global ban on nuclear arms at a ceremony marking the 64th anniversary of the devastating US attack on the Japanese city that killed about 80,000 people.

In a speech given just after 11.02am – the time when a plutonium American bomb flattened Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 – mayor Tomihisa Taue said some progress towards eliminating nuclear weaponry had been made, but more needed to be done.

“We, as human beings, now have two paths before us. While one can lead us to a world without nuclear weapons, the other will carry us toward annihilation, bringing us to suffer once again the destruction experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 64 years ago,” he said.