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PHOTOS: Hiroshima after atomic bomb

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Japan - US President Barack Obama will be the first sitting US president to tour the site of the world's first atomic bombing on May 27, accompanied by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Published: Sun 22 May 2016, 6:40 PM

Updated: Wed 25 Sep 2024, 12:21 PM

  • By
  • Reuters

The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killing thousands instantly and about 140,000 by the end of the year.

US President Barack Obama will be the first sitting US president to tour the site of the world's first atomic bombing on May 27, accompanied by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Japan and the United States are presenting US President Barack Obama's visit to Hiroshima as an affirmation of a strong alliance and a step towards world denuclearisation, but critics see selective amnesia and paradoxes on nuclear policy

Aides have said Obama will not apologise. Nor is Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 partly for making nuclear non-proliferation a centrepiece of his agenda, expected to address the debate over whether the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified.

The bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killed thousands instantly and about 140,000 by the end of the year. Nagasaki was hit on Aug. 9 and Japan surrendered six days later.

A majority of Americans see the bombings as having been necessary to end the war and save U.S. and Japanese lives, although many historians question that view. Most Japanese believe they were unjustified.



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