NAGASAKI—Atomic bomb survivors gathered at Nagasaki Peace Park here 35 years ago to protest the laying of a wreath by the captain of a U.S. military vessel that was suspected of carrying a nuclear weapon.

Senji Yamaguchi, who was president of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, trampled on the flowers on Sept. 16, 1989, scattering white chrysanthemum petals all around. He was trembling.

“I could hardly stand still when I thought about the feelings of people killed by the atomic bomb,” said Yamaguchi at the time, who died in 2013 at the age of 82.

“I stomped on the wreath as my anger and sorrow reached a peak,” he said.

Teruko Yokoyama, another hibakusha, recalls that she gave Yamaguchi a good scolding.

“If you go that far, hibakusha cannot follow your lead,” Yokoyama, 83, said she told him.

But Yokoyama, who serves as vice president of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, said she could well relate to the “anger and sorrow” that were driving Yamaguchi.

“Sen-chan was carrying the feelings of hibakusha on his shoulders,” she explained.

The council is a member of the Japan Federation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), which will be formally awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10.

A photograph of Yamaguchi was displayed alongside those of other leaders of the hibakusha movement at a news conference organized by the council on Oct. 11, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced this year’s recipient.

The committee, which described hibakusha as “witnesses to history,” said it “wishes to honor all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace.”

Yamaguchi, who served as Nihon Hidankyo co-chairperson for many years, is perhaps best remembered for his speech at a special session of the U.N. General Assembly devoted to disarmament held in New York in 1982.

“I ask you, please take a good look at my face and my hands,” he addressed the audience, holding a photograph of his keloid scars in his right hand.

He concluded the speech by saying, “May there be No More Hiroshimas, No More Nagasakis, No More Wars and No More Hibakusha!”

Yamaguchi was digging a trench at an arms factory 1.1 kilometers from ground zero when the United States dropped an atomic bomb over Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. He was 14 at the time.

He suffered burns over his entire body, with skin hanging from his arms. Serious keloid scars remained over his face and chest.

Yamaguchi could not find a job when he graduated from an industrial high school. He worked at a confectionery store that his family operated.

He was repeatedly hospitalized and released, undergoing skin graft surgeries.

One summer in his 20s, Yamaguchi cut his both wrists with a razor blade in a suicide attempt.

A life-transforming moment came in 1954, when a U.S. hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands sparked a growing movement to abolish atomic and hydrogen bombs.

Crew members of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, a tuna fishing boat known as the Lucky Dragon No. 5 that was operating in the Pacific, were exposed to radioactive fallout from the test, and one later died.

Yamaguchi, who was a key member of a group of hospitalized atomic bombing victims, formed a group of young hibakusha.

The group merged with another organization of female hibakusha to develop into an organized campaign by atomic bomb survivors.

The movement led to the formation of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council in 1956.

Yokoyama joined the council in 1972.

At the time, Yamaguchi was leading the hibakusha movement, recounting his atomic-bomb experiences at home and abroad.

He frequently visited the homes of hibakusha to listen to their problems and offer support to their families.

Yokoyama was 4 and was evacuating outside Nagasaki when the atomic bomb was detonated. She was exposed to radiation when she returned to the city.

Many of her family members died after suffering from diseases potentially linked to the nuclear radiation.

At the council, she has been offering counseling to hibakusha for more than half a century.

Many faced discrimination in marriage, struggled to make a living and had problems with alcohol.

For Yokoyama, Yamaguchi was a warm-hearted person who was always considerate of those around him. At times, he expressed strong emotions.

“I learned from Sen-chan the importance of incorporating within myself what each and every hibakusha is thinking,” she said.

She paid her respects at Yamaguchi’s grave in his hometown on the Goto Islands before heading to Oslo to attend the Dec. 10 awards ceremony.

“I am still left with a lot of duties to fulfill as a hibakusha, including passing (our activism) on to the next generation. That is what I feel I’m being told by those who blazed the trail ahead of me,” Yokoyama said.