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Bomb survivors seek end to nuclear arms – Breaking News – National – Breaking News

Bomb survivors seek end to nuclear arms The Age December 29, 2008 Ikeda Michiaki closes his eyes and clenches his fist as he remembers the darkness that descended upon Nagasaki after an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city in 1945.

Mr Michiaki, 69, remembers waking in the wreckage of the building and running past mangled bodies as he tried to escape to a nearby mountain.

Dark clouds covered the city and large drops of black rain fell from the sky………………”When I got out to the yard, what I saw was many people who had been killed and their eyeballs were literally popping out of their faces … and all parts of their bodies were puffed and swollen to over twice their normal size.”………….

The Nagasaki bombing killed about 80,000 people, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima killed just as many.

Mr Michiaki was in Sydney with other Hibakusha – or atomic bomb survivors – on a stop-off as part of a three-month global sea voyage to share their experiences and oppose nuclear weapons.

They presented a letter to the federal government praising Australia for its decision to establish the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.

The letter urged Australia to lead other countries in the abolition of nuclear weapons……………………..

Western Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlam, who travelled with the survivors for five days, said the government needed to remove any mention of nuclear weapons from its security policy.

“We still have nuclear weapons embedded in our security policy. We lie under the United States’ nuclear umbrella,” Mr Ludlam told reporters.

“Every time a warship comes into an Australian port carrying nuclear weapons, that is one instance of US nuclear weapons being part of our security policy.”

Bomb survivors seek end to nuclear arms – Breaking News – National – Breaking News

December 29, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized