Hiroshima disaster victims want Obama to visit

A 91-year-old man who survived the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima is willing to forgive Mr. Obama if he visits the city.

Survivors of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima expect Mr. Obama to help eliminate nuclear weapons. Photo: Reuters

"If the US president comes here to see what happened, if he sees this as a step in the process of eliminating nuclear weapons in the world, I think we don't need an apology," Reuters quoted 91-year-old Takeshi Masuda as saying today.

Mr. Masuda was one of the few survivors after the US military dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima city on August 6, 1945, killing more than 140,000 people.

Mr. Masuda’s mother also died in the disaster. In the schools where Masuda taught after World War II, many students were orphaned by American atomic bombs, and others suffered severe burns.

"It's hard for those whose relatives died from the atomic bomb. But if we just ask for an apology, it will be difficult to get the US president to come here," Masuda said.

Mr. Miki Tsukishita, 75 years old, said that when the bomb exploded, he ran into the house and shouted to everyone: "The sun is falling".This action helped him avoid direct exposure to heat and radiation after the explosion.

Tsukishitahope that Mr Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, will use his influence to invite leaders of nuclear-armed nations to visit the city to "understand that nuclear weapons are inhumane".

Tsukishita was also the one who took out an advertisement in the Washington Post urging President Ronald Reagan to visit Hiroshima in 1983.

"I was six years old when the city was bombed, and I had to see the images of charred bodies. This is different from the welcome the survivors received afterwards,"Hiroshi Harada, former director of the atomic bomb museum in Hiroshima, said.

Harada said Obama would "make a delicate political decision" when he goes to Hiroshima to move toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.

News of US President Obama's visit to Hiroshima has attracted the attention of the Japanese people, when it was announced by US Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit to the city on April 11.

Mr. Kerry said President Obama wants to visit Hiroshima when he travels to Japan for a summit in July.However, Mr. Kerry said he did not know whether the US president had time for this.

After the two atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no US president has set foot in these two cities.

If Mr Obama apologizes in Hiroshima, it will be controversial in the US, where most people believe the two bombings were necessary to end World War II and save America from war.Meanwhile, many Japanese people considered the atomic bombing at that time unnecessary./.

According to VNE