Peace march in Shizuoka honors hydrogen bomb victim

Kyodo reports that about 1,000 people held a peace march Saturday in Shizuoka Prefecture, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The event was held to commemorate the 54th anniversary of the irradiation of the crew of a Japanese fishing ship by a US hydrogen bomb test at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

The Bravo test, in February 1954, was at 15 megatons the most powerful bomb ever detonated by the US - far bigger than expected. An H-bomb, it vaporized three islands and threw radioactive debris over nearly 50,000 square miles, according to an interesting website maintained by "The Bureau of Atomic Tourism" (for real). Official Bikini Atoll website here, with details about the forced evacuation and sufferings of local residents. They also write about the Japanese fishing ship, called "Lucky Dragon" in English-language media. And here in Tokyo, there is a exhibition hall that houses the fishing ship, and guides explain the horrors of nuclear radiation to school children and other visitors. Address: Yumenoshima Park 3-2, Tokyo, Japan.



Participants in the Shizuoka event marched the 2-kilometer course through the city of Yaizu, the home port of Fukuryu Maru No. 5, carrying banners and a photo of Aikichi Kuboyama, the ship's chief radio operator who died six months after the irradiation at the age of 40. They placed flowers at Kuboyama's grave and prayed for peace.

The 1954 events came around the time when Japanese people were beginning to learn more about the horrible effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after years of strict censorship during the US occupation. According to CNN, by August 1955, 32 million signatures had been collected among Japanese people to protest US nuclear tests, and the first world conference protesting nuclear weapons was held in Hiroshima.