DESPERATELY THIRSTY

Today marks the 61st year

since the second A-bomb was dropped in Nagasaki:

August 9, 1945. 11:02 a.m.

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Bockscar, the B-29 bomber carrying a plutonium-core atomic bomb

and commanded by 25-year- old Major Charles Sweeney,

dropped its deadly cargo over Nagasaki from a height of 9,600 meters.

Like the primary target Kokura in Kita-Kyushu,

Nagasaki was overcast that morning.

With barely enough fuel remaining to reach Okinawa,

Major Sweeney and his crew had to pinpoint their target

in the course of only one run

over the city.

By chance a crack opened in the clouds,

revealing the industrial zone stretching from the Mitsubishi sports field

in Hamaguchi-machi to the Mitsubishi Steel Works in Mori-machi

and automatically designated this as the bombing target.

**

The actual explosion, however, occurred some five or six hundred meters

to the north over a tennis court in Matsuyama-machi.

The rest is history, repeated twice

over the Land of the Rising Sun.

The first in Hiroshima,

and now, Nagasaki,

where thousands of Catholics live and work.

***

In an instant the entire tow-kilometer radius

from the hypocenter was reduced to ashes, literally.

In a second all those who were in the vicinity of the hypocenter died,

as flashes of heat melted everything, including the glass that was

found melted and fused with the bones of the hand

of an anonymous victim that held them.

The radiation released by the explosion of the atomic bomb

penetrated human bodies

and destroyed cells in various tissues.

The extent of injuries depends on the radiation dose,

but the vast majority of all people

within a distance of one kilometer from the hypocenter died.

Since this includes people without external injuries,

it shows the destructive capacity of radiation.

The damages caused by the atomic bomb

did not end at the moment of the explosion.

The radiation wreaked deep internal injuries

that appeared in subsequent years in various symptoms.

The radiation injuries inflicted that summer of 1945

continue to this day to cause suffering.

****

Survivors, after the bomb, said they were

"desperately thirsty....."

Yes, that was what they said.

*****

NOW

we are desperately thirsty

for that CUP OF PEACE to rule over the Land,

the Earth, even.

Can we have this Peace in our lifetime?

******

I continue to pray

that Peace descend upon men and peoples.

I am desperately thirsty for Peace!

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