NAGASAKI – Former Nagasaki University President Hideo Tsuchiyama, leader of the peace movement and nuclear abolition campaign of atom-bombed Nagasaki, died early Saturday morning. He was 92.
Tsuchiyama was away from Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, when the United States dropped its second atomic bomb on the city but was exposed to its radiation when he entered the city the following day to treat the victims as a student of Nagasaki Medical College (now the School of Medicine at Nagasaki University).
After working in such posts as head of the School of Medicine, Tsuchiyama served as president of the university from 1988 to 1992.
From 1990, Tsuchiyama served as a member of a committee in charge of drafting the Nagasaki Peace Declaration, which is read by the mayor at the city’s annual memorial ceremony for the A-bomb victims on Aug. 9.
Between 2000 and 2010, he was chairman of a nongovernmental organization seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons. The NGO comprises the Nagasaki Municipal Government and civic groups.
In 2010, the Nagasaki Municipal Government bestowed the title of honorary citizen on Tsuchiyama.
Tsuchiyama was the moral and spiritual leader of the city’s peace movement. He made it a policy to distance himself from political parties and did not adhere to any specific ideology.
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