Hiroshima resets 'peace clock' after US subcritical nuclear tests

ISTANBUL

The management of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan reset on Wednesday a "peace clock" that counts the number of days since the last nuclear test, after the city learnt that the US conducted two nuclear tests last year.

According to Kyodo News, the digital number at the 3.1-meter-tall clock installed at the museum was changed from 499 to 209 following revelations that two experiments had been conducted on June 22 and Sept. 16 last year in Nevada.

The tests were first under President Joe Biden's administration, and third since his predecessor Donald Trump. The clock was last reset in November 2020.

Takuo Takigawa, the director of the museum, said it was "very disappointing" to learn of the tests "amid a global situation where the risk of nuclear weapons use is a concern."

The US dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima – the site of the world's first atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945 – and Nagasaki in 1945, which resulted in the deaths of at least 140,000 people by the end of that year.

In 2001, when Japan observed the 56th anniversary of the bombings, an anti-war organization donated the clock in the hope of reducing the number of nuclear tests.