New Times,
New Thinking.

  1. World
6 August 2015

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the single greatest acts of terrorism in human history?

Surely 70 years is long enough for us to put to rest the tired canard of the atomic bombings on Japan being "the lesser of the two evils", and recognise the true gravity of this crime against humanity.

By Akil Awan

Seventy years ago today, the Unites States dropped the atomic bomb “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second nuclear weapon, “Fat man”, was dropped over Nagasaki. To date, these are the only nuclear attacks in the history of human warfare.

The devastation caused by this new weapon was terrifying. The shockwave instantaneously obliterated almost everything within the blast radius. Houses, buildings and trees were levelled to the ground, as if they had been constructed of mere paper. The toll on the cities’ hapless inhabitants was even more dreadful, with the bombs claiming as many as 250,000 lives – the overwhelming majority civilian.

Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
More than a landlord: A future of opportunity
Towards an NHS fit for the future
How drones can revolutionise UK public services
Topics in this article :