is a Japanese anti-nuclear and anti-war activist and former professor. He is a

hibakusha ''Hibakusha'' ( or ; ja, 被爆者 or ; "person affected by a bomb" or "person affected by exposure o radioactivity) is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at th ...

, a survivor of the

atomic bombing of Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the on ...

, and is the secretary general of

Nihon Hidankyo The , often shortened to , is a group formed by ''hibakusha'' in 1956 with the goals of pressuring the Japanese government to improve support of the victims and lobbying governments for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Honors *2010: Award for So ...

, a Japan-wide organisation of atomic and hydrogen bomb sufferers.Nihon Hidankyo websit
About Us
Retrieved August 5, 2016 He lives in

Niiza, Saitama is a city in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 166,208 in 76,639 households and a population density of 7300 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Niiza is located at the southernmost tip o ...

Early life

He was born on 29 April 1932 in

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

in China, which was then under Japanese occupation as the puppet state of

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...

. He later moved to

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

Atomic bombing of Nagasaki

Tanaka was 13 years old when Nagasaki was bombed, and his home was around 3.2 kilometres from the hypocenter. He was blown through several panes of glass but did not suffer major injuries. He lost his grandfather, two uncles, an aunt, and a cousin in the bombing. He personally cremated his aunt in a nearby field after she died several days after the bombing.Tanaka, Terum
Appeal of the Hibakusha
Retrieved August 3, 2016

Postwar career

He was an associate professor in the school of engineering at

Tohoku University , or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated National ...

.Fujimura, Junpe
Interview with Terumi Tanaka, head of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers Organizations, on nuclear disarmament conference in Oslo March 25, 2016
Retrieved August 2, 2016

Activism

Tanaka has been involved with

activism since 1974, and he became secretary-general of the

Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations The , often shortened to , is a group formed by ''hibakusha'' in 1956 with the goals of pressuring the Japanese government to improve support of the victims and lobbying governments for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Honors *2010: Award for So ...

in 2000. Tanaka has called upon the U.S. to offer an apology for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Elaine Lies
Atomic bomb survivors: Obama apology nice, but priority is disarmament
Reuters (May 19, 2016). He advocates for

nuclear disarmament Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the Atomic nucleus, nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear ...

and holds that the use of nuclear weapons is never justified. He has also condemned North Korean nuclear tests. He has also spoken out against discrimination against atomic bomb survivors and their descendants. After the 2011

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...

, Tanaka and Hidankyo called for the decommissioning of reactors that had already been shut down. Along with other atomic bomb survivors Tanaka attended the May 2016 speech of US President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

in Hiroshima, responding positively and praising it as being "wonderful", although he regretted that Obama had not been able to make progress towards a nuclear free world. After reading a translation of the speech and fully understanding the contents, he regretted praising the speech, stating that Obama's abstract language such as "Death fell from the sky" was unacceptable, given the bombing was a deliberate act by the US. In January 2017 he announced that he would retire in June at the Nikon Hidankyo General Meeting.Hibakusha: A-bomb survivors reflect on notion of 'amicable settlement' March 8, 2017
''

Mainichi Shimbun The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English language news website called ''The Mainichi'' (previ ...

'' March 8, 2017

References

External links

Nihon Hidankyo - Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanaka, Terumi Japanese anti–nuclear weapons activists Anti–nuclear weapons movement 1932 births Hibakusha Living people