Nagasaki’s Immaculate Conception Cathedral was rebuilt in 1959 after being almost completely destroyed in the explosion.
Twin cathedral bells will ring in unison in Nagasaki for the first time in 80 years, as the Japanese city commemorates the moment the United States decimated it with an atomic bomb eight decades ago.
Crowds are set to gather at Nagasaki’s Immaculate Conception Cathedral on Saturday morning, as the church’s two bells will ring together for the first time since 1945.
The US dropped an atomic bomb on the southwestern port city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, at 11:02am local time, three days after it dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima.
About 74,000 people were killed in Nagasaki, while 140,000 were killed in Hiroshima.
On August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered, marking the end of World War II.
The church in Nagasaki, widely known as Urakami Cathedral, was rebuilt in 1959 after it was almost completely destroyed in the monstrous atomic explosion, the hypocentre of which was just a few hundred metres from the religious building. Only one of two church bells was recovered from the rubble.
But, funded by Catholics in the US, a new second bell has been constructed and restored to the tower. It will chime on Saturday for the first time in 80 years at the exact moment the bomb was dropped.
Nearly 100 countries are set to attend this year’s commemorations in Nagasaki.
Among the participants will be a representative from Russia, which has not been invited since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Israel, whose ambassador to Japan was not invited to the memorial last year over the country’s war on Gaza, is also expected to attend.
“We wanted participants to come and witness directly the reality of the catastrophe that a nuclear weapon can cause,” a Nagasaki official said last week.
Spearheading the fundraising campaign for the new church bell was James Nolan – a sociology professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, whose grandfather participated in the Manhattan Project, which developed the US’s first nuclear weapons.
While doing research in Nagasaki, a Japanese Christian told him he would like to hear the cathedral’s two bells ring together once again.
Inspired, Nolan embarked on a yearlong series of lectures about the atomic bomb across the US, primarily in churches, ultimately raising approximately $125,000 to fund a new bell. It was unveiled in Nagasaki earlier this year.
“The reactions were magnificent. There were people literally in tears,” Nolan said.
The cathedral’s chief priest, Kenichi Yamamura, said the bell’s restoration “shows the greatness of humanity”.
“It’s not about forgetting the wounds of the past but recognising them and taking action to repair and rebuild, and in doing so, working together for peace,” Yamamura told the AFP news agency.
