Hiroshima Lantern Festival

Hiroshima day 2011
Attendants release the paper lanterns at the end of Hiroshima ceremony.
Every year the Hiroshima Day Coalition presents an event on August 6th. This year it was the Commemoration of the 66th anniversary of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. The event had a particular resonance this year because of the Fukushima Nuclear disaster. This year there were lectures by several scientists informing us on the dangers of nuclear power as well as eye witness accounts by some Atomic bomb survivers such as Setsuko Thurlow.


Ron Korb performed at the beginning of the event at the Holy Trinity Church. At the end of the night, he played the Japanese ryuteki and walked the crowd Pied Piper style over to the reflecting pool at Nathan Phillips. There the participants set adrift their paper lanterns as a symbol of peace similar to the way Obon is celbrated in Japan.

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