NAVAL BASE KITSAP – BANGOR — Anti-nuclear activists from Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action briefly blocked the entrance to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor Monday, Aug. 14, several days after the 72nd anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

A small contingent of protesters blocked the base entrance during the morning shift change for a brief time before being removed from the road by Washington State Patrol officers. Seven protesters were cited by troopers for being in the roadway illegally. They were released at the scene.

Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, 20 miles from Seattle, is home to the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the U.S. According to the peace organization, more than 1,300 nuclear warheads are deployed on Trident D-5 missiles on eight ballistic missile submarines based at Bangor or stored at Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific at the base.

Organizers said the blockade was timely due to rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. The submarine base would likely carry out a nuclear strike against the rogue nation if President Trump were to issue an order.

“No one knows where this escalating rhetoric of President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will end,” said Ground Zero spokesman Leonard Eiger. “To take either leader at his word, a nuclear holocaust is an acceptable event. There is no acceptable military solution to this nuclear standoff. Diplomacy is the only way out of this mess.”

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action is based in Poulsbo.