HIROSHIMA, Japan, Oct 12, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Just like the dwindling group of
survivors now recognised with a Nobel prize, the residents of Hiroshima hope
that the world never forgets the atomic bombing of 1945 -- now more than
ever.

Susumu Ogawa, 84, was five when the bomb dropped by the United States all but
obliterated the Japanese city 79 years ago, and many of his family were among
the 140,000 people killed.

"My mother, my aunt, my grandfather,and my grandfather all died in the atomic
bombing," Ogawa told AFP a day after the survivors' group Nihon Hidankyo was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ogawa himself recalls very little but the snippets he garnered later from his
surviving relatives and others painted a hellish picture.

"All they could do was to evacuate and save their own lives, while they saw
other people (perish) inside the inferno," he said.

"All nuclear weapons in the world have to be abandoned," he said. "We know
the horror of nuclear weapons, because we know what happened in Hiroshima."

What is happening now in the Middle East saddens him greatly.

"Why do people fight each other? ...hurting each other won't bring anything
good," he said.

- 'Great thing' -

On a sunny Saturday, many tourists and some residents were strolling around
the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to the bomb's 140,000 victims.

A preserved skeleton of a building close to ground zero of the "Little Boy"
bomb and a statue of a girl with outstretched arms are poignant reminders of
the devastation.

Jung Jaesuk, 43, a South Korean primary school teacher visiting the site,
said the Nobel was a "a victory for (grassroots) people."

"Tension in East Asia is intensifying so we have to boost anti-nuclear
movement," he told AFP.

Kiyoharu Bajo, 69, a retired business consultant, decided to take in the
atmosphere of the site after the "great thing" that was the Nobel award.

With Ukraine and the Middle East, the world "faces crises that we've not
experienced since the Second World War in terms of nuclear weapons," he told
AFP.

The stories told by the Nihon Hidankyo group of "hibakusha", as the survivors
of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known, "have to be known to the
world," he said.

He said he hopes that the Nobel prize will help "the experiences of atomic
bomb survivors spread further spread around the world" including by
persuading people to visit Hiroshima.

- Future generations -

Kiwako Miyamoto, 65, said the Nobel prize was a "great thing, because even
some locals here are indifferent" to what happened.

"In Hiroshima, you pray on August 6, and children go to school", even though
the date is during summer vacation, she told AFP.

"But I was surprised to see that outside Hiroshima, some people don't know
(so much about it)" she said.

She said that like many people in Hiroshima, she personally knows people
whose relatives died in the bombing or who witnessed it.

With the average age among members of the Nihon Hidankyo over 85, it is vital
that young people continue to be taught about what happened, added Bajo.

"I was born 10 years after the atom bomb was dropped, so there were many atom
bomb survivors around me. I felt the incident as something familiar to me,"
he said.

"But for the future, it will be an issue."