HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — Japan marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Thursday, with Mayor Kazumi Matsui renewing calls for U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders to step up efforts toward making a nuclear weapons free world.
Tens of thousands of attendants stood for a minute of silence at 8:30 a.m. at the ceremony in Hiroshima’s peace park near the epicenter of the 1945 attack, marking the moment of the atomic blast. Then dozens of doves were released as a symbol of peace.
The U.S. bomb, “Little Boy,” the first one used at war, killed 140,000 people, and a second bomb “Fat Man,” dropped over Nagasaki three days later, killed another 70,000, prompting Japan’s surrender in World War II.