Nagasaki marks 60th anniversary of atomic bombing
The Associated Press TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2005

NAGASAKI, Japan The second — and, so far, last — city ever attacked by an atomic bomb marked the 60th anniversary of its devastation Tuesday with a Catholic Mass, a moment of silence and an angry plea for a global ban on nuclear arms. About 6,000 people, including hundreds of aging bomb survivors, crowded into Nagasaki's Peace Memorial Park, just a few hundred meters (yards) from the center of the blast, for a solemn remembrance and moment of silence.

Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Itoh then had some angry words for the leaders of the nuclear powers, and especially the United States. ''We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9-11 terrorist attacks,'' he said. ''Yet, is your security enhanced by your government's policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons, of carrying out repeated sub-critical nuclear tests, and of pursuing the development of new `mini' nuclear weapons?'' Itoh also urged Japan to get out from under the U.S. ''nuclear umbrella.'' About 50,000 U.S. troops are deployed throughout Japan under a post World War II mutual security pact.

Three days after the Enola Gay dropped the ''Little Boy'' bomb on Hiroshima, killing at least 140,000 in the world's first atomic bomb attack, Bock's Car took off to deliver the second A-bomb — nicknamed ''Fat Man'' — to the city of Kokura. Kokura was hidden under a thick cover of haze. The plane circled three times, then changed course for Nagasaki, where it also encountered thick clouds.

With dwindling fuel, the pilot nearly turned around but then found a break in the clouds. Estimates of the death toll range from 60,000 to 80,000. Nagasaki officials on Tuesday used 74,000 as the death figure.