Hiroshima 60th A-bomb anniversary marked

Tens of thousands of people from around the world gathered in Hiroshima yesterday to renew calls for the abolition of nuclear arms on the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city.

Under a blazing summer sun, survivors and families of victims assembled at the Peace Memorial Park near "ground zero", the spot where the bomb detonated on August 6, 1945, killing thousands and levelling the city.

The anniversary comes as regional powers meet in Beijing to urge North Korea to give up its nuclear programme, seen by Tokyo as a threat and one of the reasons behind rising calls in Japan to strengthen its defence and seek closer military ties with the United States.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was among those attending the ceremony in Hiroshima, 690 km southwest of Tokyo.

At 8.15 a.m., the time when the US B-29 warplane Enola Gay dropped the bomb, people at the park and throughout the city observed a minute's silence in memory of those who perished. Bells at temples and churches rang and passengers on the streetcars that run throughout the city bowed their heads in remembrance of the dead, including those incinerated while riding the streetcars.

Akiba said in his Peace Declaration that the five established nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China, as well as India, Pakistan and North Korea were "jeopardising human survival".

The Hiroshima bomb unleashed a mix of shockwaves, heat rays and radiation that killed thousands instantly. By the end of 1945 the toll had risen to some 140,000 out of an estimated population of 350,000. Thousands more died of illness and injuries later.

On August 9, 1945, three days after the Hiroshima attack, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending the military aggression that brought it into World War Two.

Yohei Kono, the speaker of parliament's lower house, said the Hiroshima anniversary should remind Japan not to return to militarism and the world not to use nuclear weapons again.

At yesterday's ceremony another 5,375 names were added to the list of Hiroshima's dead, bringing the total to 242,437.

Koizumi, in brief remarks, vowed to stick to the principles of Japan's pacifist constitution and its decades-old ban on nuclear weapons.