Japan this week marked 80 years since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, holding solemn ceremonies that echoed rising worries about a resurgent global nuclear arms race. In Hiroshima, a bell tolled at 8:15 a.m. on 6 August—the moment the uranium bomb detonated in 1945, eventually killing about 140,000 people. Thousands, including Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and delegates from more than 120 countries, observed a minute of silence at the Peace Memorial Park. Mayor Kazumi Matsui appealed to governments to sign and ratify the U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons, warning that leaders’ growing acceptance of deterrence ignores the ‘utterly inhumane’ reality survivors endured. Three days later, at 11:02 a.m., Nagasaki remembered the plutonium blast that wiped out an estimated 27,000 people instantly and 70,000 by year-end. Some 2,700 participants—representing roughly 95 nations, including the United States, Russia and Israel—gathered in the city’s Peace Park as Mayor Shiro Suzuki cautioned that “delay is no longer permissible” in eliminating nuclear arms. Prime Minister Ishiba laid a wreath and renewed Japan’s commitment to a world without nuclear weapons while reiterating the country’s reliance on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The anniversary underscored the urgency of preserving first-hand testimony. The number of recognised hibakusha has slid below 100,000, their average age topping 86. A restored bell at Urakami Cathedral—funded by U.S. Catholic donors—rang for the first time since 1945, and high-school peace ambassadors collected signatures for abolition. Nihon Hidankyo, the survivors’ organisation awarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, joined calls for concrete disarmament steps as conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and the wider Indo-Pacific keep nuclear tensions high.