Worthing marks 76th anniversary of world’s first atomic bombing

Members of Worthing Peace Group marked the 76th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing at the Peace Tree in Homefield Park.
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Starting with a short period of silent reflection at 11am, they remembered the 340,000 people whose lives were lost, either on August 6 or 9, when the two bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or in the five years since that date.

The commemoration was part of Peace Wave 2021, a worldwide movement to mark the horror of the events and to draw attention to this year’s World Conference against A and H Bombs, which works to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

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In March, the Government announced it would increase the number of nuclear warheads in its arsenal by more than 40 per cent – from 200 to 260 - the first increase since the Cold War.

Members of Worthing Peace GroupMembers of Worthing Peace Group
Members of Worthing Peace Group

A number of petitions have since been set up in a bid to reverse the decision by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Trident is Britain’s nuclear weapons system. It is made up of four nuclear submarines which can each carry up to eight missiles. In turn, each missile can carry up to five nuclear warheads, each around eight times as destructive as the bomb which flattened Hiroshima in 1945.

A Trident submarine patrols the seas at all times.

The UK Government has also included a ‘change in use posture’, meaning it would consider using nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear threats, including ‘emerging technologies’, which could mean a cyber-attack.