'Hiroshima Flame' Carried Across America as Memorial

February 12, 2002

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

On February 12, 2002, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "the 'Hiroshima Flame' kindled 57 years ago from embers of the atomic bombing of Japan... wends its way across America... Its escorts are a diverse group: a seemingly indefatigable Japanese nun who's walked across the United States four times, a Native American elder from Massachusetts, an idealistic 15-year-old girl from Honolulu, and others united in the hope that their unusual spiritual pilgrimage will foster world peace... The five-month journey is a kind of walking meditation with a Japanese Buddhist chant... The lantern was lit from a flame that is maintained in Hoshino, Japan, by the family of Tatsuo Yamamoto, who gathered burning embers from his uncle's destroyed bookstore near ground zero in Hiroshima. The dropping of the bomb -- the most concentrated killing of men, women and children ever committed -- took an estimated 120,000 to 150,000 lives."