On the 71st anniversary of the atomic bombings on Hiroshima, Hiroshima officials were able to ban Pokemon Go from being played at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial just in time for the annual ceremony honoring those that died in the bombing.
Hiroshim officials pleaded with the games developers to remove the Pokemon creatures and any other pieces of the game from the memorial before the annual ceremony that marks the death of over 140,000 people from an atomic bomb in 1945.
By Thursday, the “Pokestops” and gyms were removed from the area, but gamers were still able to catch Pokemon because the creatures hadn’t been removed.
Hiroshima officials emailed the game developers, Niantic, to get the creatures removed. At 1:56 pm, just six hours before the ceremony, Niantic responded to the email and got rid of all traces of Pokemon Go at the memorial for good.
“We were so relieved,” Hiroshima official Tatsuya Sumida told the Associated Press. “We were worried if those Pokemon were really going to go away in time.”
Roughly 50,000 participants, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other representatives from 90 separate countries took part in a minute’s silence at the exact time the atomic bomb went off 71 years ago.
The Pokemon Go game has also been banned at other war memorials around the globe, including the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Talks of other hallowed grounds banning the game and getting the game removed altogether has been widespread, including Arlington National Cemetery.
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