Hiroshima remembers bomb
2002-08-06 09:57
Hiroshima - Fifty-seven years after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, some 45 000 people on Tuesday in the city observed a minute of silence for the victims.
The ceremony at the city's Peace Memorial Park near ground-zero was held at 08:15 local time, the same time as the 1945 bombing that devastated the western Japanese city.
The annual memorial for A-bomb victims was the first since the
September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and subsequent US-led military campaign in Afghanistan.
In an address in the park, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba urged US
President George W Bush to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
"confirm with his own eyes what nuclear weapons hold in store for
us all".
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told the ceremony that Japan will continue to push for elimination of nuclear weapons from the world.
Japan will urge other countries to promote arms reduction and
nuclear non-proliferation, and Tokyo will make further efforts to
implement the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, an international
nuclear test-ban pact, he said.
Akiba and two citizens placed two books listing 4 977 people, newly recognised by the city over the past year as victims of the bombing, into a room under the arch-shaped cenotaph in the park.
The total number of victims as claimed by the city came to
226 870 on Tuesday, including an estimated 140 000 who died as a direct result of the bombing by the end of 1945. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA