AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
HIROSHIMA, Japan: The Japanese city of Hiroshima marked the 61st anniversary of the world's first atomic attack on Sunday with renewed calls for a nuclear-free world.
Some 45,000 people recited silent prayers at 8:15 am (2315 GMT Saturday), the exact moment in 1945 when a single US bomb instantly killed more than 140,000 people and fatally injured tens of thousands of others with radiation or horrific burns.
Government officials and foreign guests from 35 countries laid wreaths before a memorial to the dead against the backdrop of the famous A-bomb dome, a former exhibition hall burned to a skeleton by the bomb's heat.
The peal of a bell echoed at the memorial park, where survivors mostly in their 70s or 80s also gathered, escorted by their children or grandchildren under a scorching sun to say prayers for the dead.
“Sixty-one years later, the number of nations enamored of evil and enslaved by nuclear weapons is increasing,” Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said in a speech.
Akiba said his city and atomic bomb survivors have long sought the abolition of nuclear weapons. “Yet the world's political leaders continue to ignore these voices,” he said.
“I call on the Japanese government to … forcefully insist that the nuclear-weapon states negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament,” Akiba said.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said: “We promise to continue leading the international society to the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons and achieving permanent peace.”
The Hiroshima bombing was followed by the dropping of a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki on August 9, leaving another 70,000 more dead. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II.
The anniversary of the attacks comes amid growing tension in the region with North Korea posing a missile threat and sticking to its nuclear ambitions.
News reports said last week that Pyongyang had been building new underground missile bases along its east coast, targeting Japan and US military facilities in Japan.
The communist nation set off new alarm bells in the region with its July 5 test-firing of seven ballistic missiles that splashed in the Sea of Japan (East Sea). In 1998, it test-launched a missile over Japan.
In his speech, Akiba also called for additional measures to support aging survivors of the atomic bomb.
“I further request more generous, people-oriented assistance appropriate to the actual situation of the aging hibakusha,” he said, using the Japanese word for victims of nuclear bombings.
On Friday, survivors of the Hiroshima bombing won a victory with a court ruling that the Japanese government was too inflexible in determining who was eligible for benefits.
The Hiroshima District Court said that 41 plaintiffs, aged from 62 to 94, deserved to be recognized as survivors, which would pave the way for them to receive Japan's generous benefits for their illnesses.
The government had refused to recognize them as Hiroshima bombing survivors because they did not meet official criteria. In many cases, the plaintiffs were judged not to have been close enough to ground zero of the blast.
About 180 people are fighting 16 similar lawsuits across Japan seeking state recognition and compensation, news reports said.
Some 260,000 survivors of the two atomic bombs were alive as of March 31, with their average age 73.9, according to Hiroshima city.
