Day of events aims to promote peace

Almost 5,000 people enjoyed the sunshine while being entertained by music from scores of bands in a free event organised by a group of Oxford University students to promote peace.

Behind the fun at the weekend was a serious message.

Co-organiser Neela Dolezalova said: "It went very well. It brought so many people together who don't normally mix, a real variety of people of different ages and from different walks of life.

"The point was to raise awareness and not to let people forget what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"At the end of the day we read out a speech from the mayor of Hiroshima.

"He said he wanted people to remember what happened and to talk about it for the whole of this year, as it is the 60th anniversary year.

"It was a really moving speech with a very postive message."

Pupils from Cheney School, in Headington, held a debate and bands including Sol Samba, Confidential Collective, Dot's Funk Odyssey and Inflatable Buddha, Soul Kitchen and Hit 'n Run drum n bass played.

A bomb was dropped on to the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, with 80,000 people estimated to have died initially, followed by another 60,000 over the next few months.

Three days later Nagasaki was also bombed, with 40,000 dying that day and another 40,000 in the following weeks.

Green Party principal speaker Keith Taylor attended the event before giving a speech about nuclear power at the Vaults Cafe, at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, in High Street, Oxford.

He said that the amount of radiation which escaped in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine was at least 100 times as much as that created by the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

"It's often claimed that nuclear is carbon-free," he said.

"It's not. Although it releases no carbon during the generation process, it releases a huge amount of carbon dioxide during mining and transporting the ore, fuel processing, decommissioning and waste management."