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The Scar Still Runs Deep in Hiroshima

© Haydee De Guzman

On 30 September 1999, a nuclear accident at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, Japan, some 30 miles from Tokyo, has directly affected 69 people with 300,000 feared to be exposed to radiation.

Japan's worst nuclear accident brings to mind Hiroshima, the city that first experienced the horrors of a nuclear attack when it was leveled to ashes by a US B-29 bomber more than 50 years ago. Like a phoenix that has risen from the ashes, Japan, today, has built a better and brighter Hiroshima.

So it was not surprising when I visited Hiroshima that what I found was a modern, progressive city. Towering office buildings and shopping malls now stand where once was a seared landscape. Heavy industries such as automobiles (Mazda has its headquarters here), steel and shipbuilding thrive in the area. The Bay of Hiroshima is the source of the city's well-known delicacy-the oyster. Streetcars navigate the broad avenues while elegantly arched bridges straddle the six rivers that flow through the city.

Despite earlier fears that vegetation could ever grow again, Hiroshima today is a city of flowers. Red, white and yellow blooms are all over while trees and shrubs in all its lush greenery line the streets. Appropriately, the city has become the site of a Flower Festival every Spring. The sight of Hiroshima today makes it hard to believe that it was once a frightful atomic desert.

Hiroshima, indeed, has recovered well and fast. While it seems the city would want to forget, it also refuses to stop remembering. Behind the luxuriant lifestyle of its people today and the city's vibrant energy are horrific memories of nuclear destruction. The city's Peace Memorial Park helps sustain the cruel images of a gruesome past.

Our tour of the Peace Memorial Park starts at the A-bomb Dome, so-called because of the umbrella-like shape of its top steel frame. The only remaining legacy of the nuclear attack, the building was the former Hiroshima Industrial Promotion Hall and lies just a few meters from the hypocenter. About 30 people inside the building at the time of the atomic explosion were all killed instantly.

Monuments and memorials to A-bomb victims dot the sprawling 122,100 sq. meters Peace Park. An eerie feeling pervades while passing the Atomic Bomb Memorial Museum Mound. A cinerary mound for the cremated victims of tens of thousands of A-bomb victims, about 70,000 unidentified bones are buried in this mound. Urns and a memorial ivory tower where the names of the war dead are inscribed stand on the mound. Considered a sacred place, memorial services are often held there. Near the Memorial Mound is the Bell of Peace. It is the symbol of Hiroshima Aspiration that nuclear arms and wars be eradicated so that nations may lie in true peace. Here, visitors are invited to toll the bell of peace that "it may ring to all corners of the Earth for every man to hear".

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