News / Castle Park
Four-day event marks anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki tragedies
A peace gathering began in Bristol at precisely 8.15am on Tuesday morning, the exact time a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
The ‘die-in’ at Castle Park remembered the victims of Hiroshima where participants subsequently gathered in a circle to reflect in both spoken words and silence.
A similar ceremony will be held on Friday at 11.02am, where in another ‘die-in’ session, the victims of Nagasaki will be remembered.
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“It is perhaps the only event of this nature in the whole UK,” said the organisers of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Gathering .
The four-day event marks the 79th anniversary of the tragedies unfolding on the two Japanese cities four days apart in 1945.
Bristol Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Bristol CND) has organised the event near ruins of St Peter’s Church on Castle Park facing Finzels Reach.
The event is more than silent reflection but an invitation for people of Bristol to learn about the “real cost” of the nuclear arms race.
The four-day event will include talks on nuclear enrichment from a scientific and environmental perspective along with performances and reports from eye-witness accounts.
2024 is the 79th anniversary of the dropping of the two atomic bombs – photo: Rob Browne
Michal Lovejoy, an anti-nuclear campaigner from Cornwall said: “People need to be aware of the threat of nuclear weapons. And somehow it doesn’t get mentioned very much. So we are here”
Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, Martin Smith, added: “I’ve been supporting nuclear disarmament since my teenage years. And I’m demonstrating my awareness today that this nonsense has to stop.
“It is crazy we are having million children going hungry in Britain and yet we are spending millions of pounds into research and development of nuclear weapons.”
For the full programme, visit sites.google.com/site/cndbristolbranch/home/hiroshima-nagasaki-peace-gathering
Main photo: Rob Browne
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