The nuclear arms race warms up. Will he be another bomb to renew the pressure for disarmament?

Eighty years after the fall of the first atomic bombs, experts and survivors warn that the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be unleashed again, while the nuclear arms race warms up.

“Most experts believe that the risk of nuclear use is increasing and, in some cases, increases considerably,” said Joseph Circione, a national security analyst who has worked on nuclear non-proliferation for decades.

“The same drivers we saw in the 1950s and 60s who fueled the arms race is now reaffirming … and we don’t have public pressure to counter them,” he said Sunday magazine.

In January, the ballot of atomic scientists updated its Doomsday clock to read 89 seconds at midnightwhere 12:00 am represents the moment of the destruction of humanity. The organization has examined factors such as climate change and AI progress, but has also highlighted conflicts in the Middle East and The potential for nuclear climbing in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

CIRINCIONE said that nine countries with nuclear weapons – the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – are currently increasing their arsenals or their delivery systems. He added that France is considering Extend his nuclear umbrella on other EU nationsIncreasing the scope of deterrence but also of potential conflicts. And countries like South Korea are considering Build their own weapons for the first timeFearing that they could no longer count on the United States to protect themselves.

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In June, Israel and the United States targeted Iranian nuclear and military sites, causing a 12-day conflict. Friday, American president Donald Trump ordered two nuclear submarines to be moved In response to the “inflammatory declarations” of former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

All this comes after “a good 40 years of reduction in nuclear arsenals,” said Circincione, adding that it was always necessary “to move politicians in the right direction”.

He says he thinks that public pressure is absent today because people have taken the trend towards disarmament and have started to focus on other urgent problems, such as climate change.

He said that among some experts and activists, there is now a feeling of pessimism that he could take the unthinkable to renew the thrust of disarmament.

“Opinion is that we may have to see a nuclear detonation before the public is alerted to the threat and motivated to mobilize,” he said.

“A certain fear that we may need to go through the horror to see them be used.”

Watch: Keep Hiroshima’s stories alive::

Keep Hiroshima’s stories alive 75 years after the bombardment

Seventy-five years after the United States abandoned a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, there are fewer survivors to talk about their experience, but a new generation has found a way to keep these memories alive.

“ My beloved city has just flat ” ‘

Japanese Canadian Settsuko Thurlow was 13 years old and lived in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, when the United States exploded an atomic bomb during the quarter of a million people who lived there.

She says she remembers a blinding flash of light, then had the impression that she was floating. When she crawled under a building collapsed, all around her was rubble and flames.

“My beloved city is just flattened and burned with a bomb. And 351 classmates, they were all burned to death, alive,” she said.

She remembers her four -year -old nephew “transformed into a piece of melted flesh”.

Three days later, a second nuclear bomb was exploded in the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The two combined explosions killed around 120,000 people instantly and tens of thousands of others in the years that have followed. The surrender of Japan was announced on August 15, ending the Second World War.

Watch: Hiroshima Survivor tells the horror of Blast Atomic:

Hiroshima Survivor tells the horror of Blast Atomic 80 years ago

A survivor of the world’s first nuclear attack described the horrible day and the consequences 80 years ago – August 6, 1945 – when the United States abandoned an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, which killed around 140,000 people.

Thurlow, who was 93, married a Canadian in 1950 and now lives in Toronto. She has been working for decades as a militant against nuclear weapons and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 For his work with the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.

The author and journalist Garrett Graff said that the 80th anniversary of this year was “particularly poignant” for many people, because so few survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain.

“I think it’s up to us to advance their vision and dream of making sure that … this remains the last and the only time we use nuclear weapons,” said Graff, author of The devil reached the sky: an oral history of the manufacture and unleashing of the atomic bomb.

Nuclear money could help other problems

Thurlow shares the concerns that another nuclear strike could “get closer and closer” and says that Canada is not enough to repel nuclear proliferation, despite Polls showing that a majority of Canadians want nuclear weapons to be eliminated.

“I had a serious concern that the government did not respond to the will of the people,” she said, adding that she wanted to see Canada regaining its “global respect and reputation as a peace builder”.

Sunday magazine Contacted the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to ask for what Canada does on the global proliferation of nuclear weapons, but has been returned to Canada World Affairs. GAC did not respond to a request for a due date.

Cirincione said millions of people around the world had participated in Demonstrations against nuclear weapons. He says he thinks that the thrust for disarmament could be relaunched if it can be merged with other changes in change.

“You want to increase health care, you want to increase education? Where are you going to get the money?” He said.

The response could reside in high -nuclear weapons global expenses, he said: “This could provide a great source of the money you need for human needs, not human destruction.”