Citizen groups continue to promote peace and nuclear abolition

"Sendai Peace Tanabata"

This is a citizens' group from Sendai that displays folded paper cranes as streamers while praying for peace at the Sendai Tanabata Festival, one of the three major summer festivals in Tohoku.

And this marks the 50th summer.

The Sendai Tanabata festival began on the anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, and the day after it ended on the anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bombing. It was started by volunteers from the Sendai YMCA. They started with just 2,000 folded paper cranes.

As calls for "nuclear abolition" spread throughout the country, the number of folded paper cranes donated from all over the country increased each year, from 200,000 in the 7th event (1982) to 800,000 in the 16th event, and finally reaching one million by the 18th event (1993).