The peace park in the heart of Hiroshima fell silent on Thursday morning as more than 55,000 people marked the moment at 8.15am, 70 years earlier, when the atom bomb exploded over the city and thrust the world into the nuclear age.
Bells then tolled and white doves were released into skies that were as clear blue as they had been on the morning of August 6 1945 when the US bomber, Enola Gay, flew over Hiroshima and released its historic payload — a weapon that the US argued spared lives by ending the Pacific war quickly, but whose justification remains bitterly debated.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who contends with falling approval ratings over what many see as militaristic policy-making, and has faced recent street protests against his controversial new security bills, told the audience that Japan had “an important mission to bring about a world without nuclear weapons”.