On Hiroshima Day, UN chief warns humanity ‘playing with loaded gun’

A new arms race is picking up, UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Saturday in Hiroshima as the world remembers the horrors of the first atomic bomb attack on the 77th anniversary. "Tens of thousands of people were killed in this city in the blink of an eye. Women, children and men were incinerated in a hellish fire," he said in the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

"Nuclear weapons are nonsense. Three-quarters of a century later, we must ask what we've learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city in 1945", the UN chief underlined. He also mentioned the Ukraine war, which started on 24  February.

"…Crises with grave nuclear undertones are spreading fast — from the Middle East to the Korean peninsula, to Russia's invasion of Ukraine… Humanity is playing with a loaded gun", he cautioned.

The world has been on the edge ever since the Ukraine war star amid fears of Russia president Vladimir Putin resorting to the use of nuclear weapons. The war is in its seventh month yet there have been no signs of ceasefire.

In a reminder to the world, the UN chief further said: "We must keep the horrors of Hiroshima in view at all times, recognizing there is only one solution to the nuclear threat: not to have nuclear weapons at all."

The 6 August 1945 horror - during World War 11 killed more than 140,000 people in Hiroshima.

The UN chief's remarks come at a time when tensions are brewing between the US and China over US speaker Nancy Pelosy's visit to Taiwan.