Japan’s atomic bomb survivors to receive Nobel Prize

80 years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize will be presented to Japan’s atomic bomb survivors’ group Nihon Hidankyo.

The group lobbies against the weapons now resurging as a threat.

The Nihon Hidankyo’s three co-chairs will receive the prestigious award during a ceremony starting at 1pm (1200 GMT) in Oslo’s City Hall.

The award is being given at a time when Russia is increasingly threatening to break the international taboo on the use of nuclear arms.

Addressing a press conference in Norwegian capital, one of the three co-chairs Terumi Tanaka said: “Nuclear weapons and humanity cannot co-exist.”

The 92-year-old said that humanity may come to its end even before climate change brings its devastating impacts.

Nihon Hidankyo group has been working tirelessly to rid the planet of the weapons of mass destruction, with testimonies from survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as “hibakusha”.

In Hiroshima, about 40,000 people were killed when the United States detonated an atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.

Three years later, a further 74,000 were killed by a US nuclear bomb in Nagasaki.

As a result, survivors suffered from radiation sickness and longer-term effects, including elevated risks of cancer.