Japan on Sunday commemorated the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in the final phase of World War II.
Considering the growing nuclear threat worldwide, the mayor of Hiroshima Kazumi Matsui called for the abolition of nuclear weapons and described the nuclear deterrence policy of G7 as "folly."
"They must immediately take concrete steps to move us from the dangerous present to our ideal world," he said as a peace bell rang on Sunday at 8:15 a.m.— exactly when on August 6, 1945, US bomber Enola Gay set off the world's first atomic bomb dropped on a population center.
At the memorial ceremony, about 50,000 people, including aging victims who survived the bombing, gathered and observed a moment of silence.
The anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing was commemorated amid the growing threat of nuclear weapons propelled by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The American atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was nicknamed "Little Boy." It is thought to have killed as many as 140,000 people by the end of 1945. Three days later, the US dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki. It is believed to have killed up to 70,000 over the next four months.
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