Tears, warnings after Japan atomic survivors group win Nobel

Tokyo: A grassroots group of survivors formed after the 1945 atomic bombings in Japan reacted with tears and dire warnings on Friday after winning the...

Tokyo: A grassroots group of survivors formed after the 1945 atomic bombings in Japan reacted with tears and dire warnings on Friday after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee nominated Nihon Hidankyo "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again".

Around 140,000 people died when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and 74,000 others in Nagasaki three days later.

The bombings, the only times nuclear weapons have been used in history, brought to an end World War II and with it imperial Japan's brutal rampage across Asia.

But survivors of the initial blasts, known as "hibakusha", also suffered from radiation sickness and longer-term effects including elevated risks of cancer.