A piece of paper is seen taped to the Cenotaph for A-bomb Victims at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in the city's Naka Ward on June 24, 2021. (Mainichi/Misa Koyama)

       HIROSHIMA -- A city official has expressed anger over an apparent prank in which odd memos were taped to the Cenotaph for A-bomb Victims and other locations at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in this western Japan city.

       Around 1 p.m. on June 24, a tourist who visited the park in the city's Naka Ward discovered a piece of paper attached onto the cenotaph with adhesive tape. It contained odd phrases including "Today at 18:27 a meteorite at Yoshiura."

       An employee of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum filed a report with Hiroshima Prefectural Police after the museum was informed of the incident. Aside from this, memos and adhesive tape were found attached to three locations in the surrounding area, including a description board of the Atomic Bomb Dome and a plaque of the Pond of Peace. Prefectural police are investigating the case as a malicious prank.

       Ayumi Inada, an official of the municipal government's peace promotion section in charge of efforts to pass down A-bomb survivors' testimonials, commented, "I have no choice but to call this profanity against the souls of A-bomb victims, and it angers me greatly."

       There had been no abnormalities when a security guard made the rounds about 10 minutes before the piece of paper was discovered on the cenotaph, officials said.

       (Japanese original by Isamu Gaari and Kana Nemoto, Hiroshima Bureau)

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