Japan's Hiroshima, Nagasaki Lodge Protest Over Recent US Subcritical Nuclear Test

TOKYO (Sputnik) - The administrations of Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki prefectures, which came under the US atomic bombing during the Second World War, have lodged a protest to Washington over the latter's recent subcritical nuclear experiment at the Nevada National Security Site.

Earlier this week, the United States successfully executed another subcritical experiment to allegedly provide essential data on the behavior of materials used in nuclear warheads, the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration said. The authority said that the experiment was consistent with the US's self-imposed moratorium on nuclear explosive testing and did not create a self-sustaining, supercritical chain reaction.

"Such a conduct is totally unacceptable as it betrays the wishes of the hibakusha [victims of the US atomic bombings in Japan] who have been appealing that 'no one else should suffer as we have,' and millions of others who seek the abolition of nuclear weapons. On behalf of the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima, I vehemently protest and demand that all future nuclear tests be cancelled," Hiroshima City Mayor Matsui Kazumi said in his letter to US President Joe Biden and US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel on Saturday.

Nagasaki Governor Kengo Oishi and Nagasaki City Mayor Shiro Suzuki have also sent similar letters to the White House and the US ambassador, Japanese media reported.

On August 6 and 9, 1945, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Around 220,000 people — mostly civilians — were killed in the attacks and 200,000 more died from deadly radiation exposure. The two cities' residential structures were mostly burned and destroyed in the detonations.