Monique Ross
Updated August 07, 2011 07:54:09
Hundreds of people turned out at Hiroshima Day rallies across Australia today, with organisers saying the crisis at Japan's crippled Fukushima plant has boosted nuclear concerns.
A mushroom cloud over Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was dropped
Related Story: Apologising for the bomb: a letter on our anniversary
Related Link: Hiroshima Day Committee website
Map: Australia
It has been 66 years since the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima towards the end of World War II, and five months since a massive quake and tsunami triggered the disaster at Fukushima.
Denis Doherty from the Hiroshima Day Committee believes there are grim similarities between the two events.
"Both areas had ground zero. Both had incredibly large death tolls," he said.
"Hiroshima, Nagasaki and now Fukushima have areas where people are getting radiation-induced cancer."
Mr Doherty, who is organising today's rally in Sydney, says the ongoing crisis in Japan is motivating people to voice their views on nuclear weapons and power.
"As an example.. since its creation in around 1978, the event has been largely ignored by Japanese expats," he said.
"But this year is different. Japanese people are calling up and wanting to help organise the rally, join the rally.
"Fukushima is bringing them out."
Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon will address the Sydney rally, which kicks off from Belmore Park in the afternoon.
"It is very important that we mark the first use of atomic bombs on civilian populations, to remember those killed and to raise our voices in opposition to the nuclear industry," she said in a statement.
"What has happened in Japan is a sad reminder of the capacity for disaster in any nuclear project.
"Climate change has reopened the debate around nuclear energy, but what has happened in Japan reminds us that the lid must be kept firmly on any expansion of this incredibly dangerous industry."
But Dr Martin Sevior, a physics professor and nuclear power expert from the University of Melbourne, says the nuclear power industry is heavily regulated and nowhere near as dangerous as some people believe.
"Nuclear power is not safe in the sense that nothing is safe. Driving a car is not safe, riding on a plane or train is not safe," he said.
"Look at it this way. There was a Richter scale nine earthquake in Japan which resulted in a metres-high tsunami hitting Japan, which has nuclear power outlets dotted up and down its coastline.
"The incident at Fukushima resulted in the release of a relatively large amount of radiation... but there have been no deaths directly related to radiation in Japan.
"There are a set of controls in place to protect the population and by and large those worked."
Dr Sevior sees nuclear power being used in Australia in around 10 years.
"Nuclear power has very low greenhouse gas emissions, and a low cost in comparison to a lot of other fossil fuels," he said.
'Inhuman weapon'
Meanwhile, marches will also take place today in Brisbane, Melbourne, Wollongong, Broken Hill and Hobart and Mr Doherty says they are not only about the use of nuclear power.
He says the events also bring a "pro-peace" message that argues against the use of nuclear weapons.
"It's a totally inhuman weapon. It kills pregnant women, children, babies, completely indiscriminately," he said.
"It brought massive misery, massive suffering. It killed 210,000 people almost immediately [in 1945]. That's a horrendous record."
He says that over the years, thousands more died or became sick due to the effects of radiation exposure.
Painful memories
Three days after the Hiroshima bombing, an atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
Taniguchi Sumiteru was 16 when Nagasaki was hit. He is now a leader of a survivors' organisation in Nagasaki.
He relived his experience during a session of the United Nations and told of his desire for a world without nuclear weapons.
"When it struck, I was burned on my back with the heat ray of the fireball... the next moment I was blown off together with the bike about four metres and smashed to the ground by the blast," he told the UN session.
"When I looked up, the buildings around me had been smashed. Children who were playing near me had been blown down like they were mere dust.
"[In a makeshift hospital after the bomb] I lingered on the verge of death but failed to die. I was somehow made to live. Because I could not move an inch, my chest suffered severe bedsores even to the bones.
"As a result my chest looks like the flesh was scooped out of it and even today you can see my heart beating between the ribs."
He said he fears the world is on the verge of forgetting what happened in 1945.
"Half a century has passed since peace was restored. As I look at the aspects of our society today, we are in the process of forgetting the painful past," he said.
"But I fear oblivion. I fear that forgotten memories are leading to a renewed affirmation of the atomic bombs."
That outcome is something Hiroshima Day hopes to avoid.
Tags: activism-and-lobbying, environment, nuclear-energy, alternative-energy, nuclear-issues, australia, sydney-2000, nsw
First posted August 06, 2011 08:14:23
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