From a Public Opinion Survey on People's Awareness of the Atomic Bombings
October 2010
It has been 65 years since the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In June 2010 the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute conducted a public opinion survey on people’s awareness of the atomic bombings in cooperation with NHK Hiroshima and Nagasaki Stations, The survey made queries, among other things, on the exact dates on which the bombs were dropped, people’s perceptions of the atomic bombings, the pros and cons of elimination of nuclear weapons, and threats of nuclear terrorism. Is there any significant difference in terms of awareness of the atomic bombings and nuclear weapons between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, victims of nuclear bombing, and unaffected areas in Japan? This paper reports the results and analyses.
70% of the respondents in Hiroshima knew the exact date of “The Day of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb,” while only 23% did so in unaffected areas. As for “The Day of Nagasaki Atomic Bomb,” those who knew the exact date accounted for 64% in Nagasaki and 23% in unaffected areas. Thus, disparity was observed between Hiroshima/Nagasaki and the rest of Japan. However, among those in their twenties and thirties, only 52% in Hiroshima and 54% in Nagasaki could answer the question correctly, revealing one out of two young people had no clear knowledge of when exactly the atomic bombs were dropped on their own cities.
On the question about their feelings about the atomic attacks, about half of the respondents in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the rest of Japan “cannot forgive it even now,” but about 40% in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the rest felt that the bombings were “inevitable.”
Asked about the future of nuclear weapons, the majority (more than half in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the rest) thought that the number of weapons would “decrease, but not by much.” Only 1 to 2% in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the rest foresaw “complete elimination of nuclear weapons.”
Moreover, more than 70% of the respondents in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the rest anticipated the risk of terrorists using nuclear weapons somewhere in the world in the near future (“somewhat possible” and “highly possible” combined).
Although Mr. Obama, the President of the US, the major nuclear power, famously called for working towards “the world without nuclear weapons” last year, the survey shows people’s less than optimistic outlook on the possible elimination of nuclear threats.