"Nothing has changed from the time of the atom bombs. ... It stands to reason that people are terrified of what they cannot see. I understand the hysteria. In the end, humans must not resort to the atom that they cannot control. The time has come for the Japanese people to make up their mind."

The nuclear disaster of 2011, with Fukushima as its ground zero, has thrown the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into a new light.

For decades the Japanese government has striven to separate the two nuclear issues in people's minds, attempting to disassociate the atom in the bomb from the atom in the reactor. This specious policy was shattered following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11. The bomb and the reactor are now irrevocably linked in the minds of the Japanese people.