A silent prayer was held in Japan on Wednesday morning as it marked 80 years since the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, the BBC reports.
Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba attended the ceremony on Wednesday, along with officials from around the world and the city’s mayor Kazumi Matsui.
Matsui warned of a global “accelerating trend toward military build-up… [and] the idea that nuclear weapons are essential for national defence”, saying this was a “flagrant disregard [of] the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history”.
World War Two ended with Japan’s surrender after the dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The bombs killed more than 200,000 people – some from the immediate blast and others from radiation sickness and burns.
The legacy of the weapons continues to haunt survivors today.
