Japan to submit to UN new draft resolution on elimination of nuclear weapons - PM

TOKYO, August 6. /TASS/. Japan will submit a new draft resolution on the elimination of nuclear weapons at the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony on Thursday, the A-Bomb Day. Japan is the only country that has suffered from nuclear weapons and that is why it has a mission to expose the inhumane nature of such weapons, he said and pledged that the government would continue its support to a-bomb survivors. At 08:15:01 local time - at the exact time when the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, Peace Bell rand a minute of silence at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. More than 55,000 local residents, politicians and public figures, and representatives from 100 countries, including Russia, took part in the ceremony. Early in the morning on August 6, 1945, the Japanese air defence forces localized a squad of U.S. warplanes approaching Hiroshima but the command took the decision to not intercept them. So, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, piloted by Lt. Col Paul Tibbets dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The bomb, nicknamed ‘Little Boy," exploded 580 metres above the ground unleashing a blinding flash followed by a deafening boom. From 70,000 to 100,000 people died instantly. By the end of 1945, the death toll rose to about 140,000. The explosion, equal to 12,000 to 15,000 tonnes of TNT, destroyed more than two-thirds of Hiroshima’s buildings. Read more