Nagasaki Peace Park & Atomic Bomb Museum

At 11:02 on August 9, 1945, a plutonium bomb detonated 500 meters above the Urakami Valley, instantly killing an estimated 40,000 people and destroying everything within a 1km radius. The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum documents the event with artifacts, survivor testimonies, and contextual history of the Pacific War. The adjacent Peace Park contains the Peace Statue — a 9.7-meter bronze figure with right hand pointing to the sky (the threat of nuclear weapons) and left hand extended horizontally (eternal peace).

What distinguishes Nagasaki's atomic legacy from Hiroshima is the specific targeting: the bomb was originally intended for Kokura (now Kitakyushu) but was diverted to Nagasaki due to cloud cover. The hypocenter was the Urakami Cathedral — the largest Catholic church in Asia — making Nagasaki's Christian community the unintended victim of the second atomic attack.