The world is approaching its 80th anniversary of the first use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima, Japan, near the end of World War II, so the planet is closer to seeing it being used again than it had been in decades. Experts and survivors warn.
At Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on Wednesday morning, the decline in high-ranking officials and survivors was set to commemorate the moment on August 6, 1945, when a US B-29 bomber known as the “Little Boy” dropped an atomic weapon known as the “Little Boy.”
Over 110,000 people were killed immediately in the attack, but hundreds of thousands of people have died over the years from injuries and radiation-related illnesses.
To this day, they remain the only era in which nuclear weapons have been used in war. Still, these weapons continue to present a very current threat.
“We don’t have much time while facing a bigger nuclear threat than ever,” said Nihon Haidankyo, a grassroots organization in Japan that won the Nobel Peace Prize for pursuit of nuclear abolition last year, before the ceremony. “Our biggest challenge right now is to change the state of nuclear weapons that give us a little cold shoulder.”
Modern tensions have just been reflected in the past week as nuclear sabers are pissed over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine between Russia and the United States. And in recent months, the US has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities with powerful traditional bombs to stop Tehran’s nuclear program.
Earlier this year, nuclear forces urged India and Pakistan to fight a brief conflict over the long, contested rule of Kashmir, scrambling and avoiding dangerous escalations between the two.
“We see a clear trend in the growth of nuclear weapons, shortening nuclear rhetoric and abandoning the arms control agreement,” said Han Christensen, senior fellow associate fellow for the Weapons of Mass Destruction Program at the Stockholm International Peace Studies (SIPRI) Institute.
The surprising nuclear trend played a major role in driving the Doomsday Clock, which was founded earlier this year in 1947, and the Doomsday Clock, which approached the planetary disaster from 89 seconds to midnight.
The clock only moved from 90 seconds to 2024, but a 2025 report states that small differences are not a reason to celebrate.
“As the world is already at risk on a cliff, even a second should be seen as a sign of extreme danger, and an undeniable warning that delays in reversal of courses increase the probability of a global disaster,” the move’s press release states.
The group also considers “destructive technologies,” such as climate change, biological threats like the pandemic and biological age, and the malicious use of artificial intelligence when setting up watches.
However, the nuclear threat was at the forefront and center of their report, released at the end of January.
“Nationals that own nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization,” a report from Doomsday Clock said.
The Hiroshima atomic bomb, which has an explosive yield of 15 kilotons, is considered by today’s standards as a low-yield nuclear weapon. The largest nuclear weapon in the US arsenal is 1.2 megatons, 80 times the yield of the Hiroshima bomb.
Experts warn that a single modern nuclear weapon could instantly kill millions if it explodes in a metropolitan city.
According to Cipri, there are over 12,000 nuclear powers in the hands of nine nuclear powers: the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.
Almost all of these countries “continued their intensive nuclear modernization program in 2024, upgraded existing weapons and added new versions,” Sipri’s latest annual report states.
The report says that the US and Russia hold about 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, but they own about 90% of nuclear weapons, but the number of nuclear powers is growing or they plan to raise arsenals.
China is at the forefront of growth, adding around 100 nuclear warheads a year. This is a trend Sipri expects to continue.
India is believed to be added to its stockpile, and the UK is expected to be expected soon, the report says.
Meanwhile, North Korea shows no signs of retreating its nuclear state. Kim Yeon Jong, a powerful sister to state leader Kim Jong, said last month that Pyongyang will not abandon its warhead in exchange for discussions with Washington and Seoul.
“An attempt to deny DPRK’s status as a nuclear weapons nation will be thoroughly rejected,” she said.
