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A candlelight peace walk to downtown’s Nagasaki Peace Bell, slated for Aug. 9, will commemorate the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki as well as express gratitude for nearly seven subsequent decades without nuclear bomb explosions.
The walk will start at 5 p.m. with a lantern-lighting service at the Honpa Hongwanji Hawaii Betsuin temple, 1727 Pali Highway, and end at about 7 p.m. at the Peace Bell Memorial at the Honolulu Civic Center on South Beretania Street. Anyone unable to participate in the walk may meet the group at the peace bell for a short service and bell-ringing.
The event will also feature a screening of "GATE: The Atomic Flame" at 3 p.m. in the temple’s lounge. The film tells of three Buddhist monks who nine years ago made a 1,600-mile pilgrimage to Trinity, N.M., to return the atomic flame, which had burned continuously at a memorial site between Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Trinity is considered the birthplace of the atomic bombs that decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The symbolic gesture tied to the flame’s return to New Mexico was to close the cycle of nuclear destruction and usher in a new cycle on nuclear disarmament. For additional information about the event, call 348-4399.