1995: Japan mourns Hiroshima anniversary

Up to 50,000 people have attended a memorial service in the Japanese city of Hiroshima on the 50th anniversary of the first atomic bombing.

The service took place in the Hiroshima Peace Park built directly below the point where the bomb exploded.

At precisely 0815 - a half-century to the minute after the bomb was dropped over the city - bells were rung and sirens wailed before a minute's silence was observed.

During the service attended by the Japanese Prime Minister and members of his cabinet, the city's mayor, Takashi Hiraoka, warned against the dangers of nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear weapons offer no security to the nations that possess them.

"As long as nuclear weapons exist, it is inevitable that some country, at some point, will experience the horror that Hiroshima and Nagasaki already know," Mr Hiraoka said.

In a conciliatory gesture Mr Hiraoka apologised for what he called the "unbearable suffering" that Japanese colonialism and brutality inflicted during the Second World War.

In an annual ritual the list of people killed by the bomb and its after-effects was updated.

This year the names of more than 5,000 people, mostly victims of radiation-caused leukaemia bring the total of Hiroshima's dead to more than 192,000.

For the first time Chinese and Korean survivors - many of who were being used as forced labour at the time of the blast - were invited to the official memorial service.

There were no representatives of the then Western Allied powers - who had ordered the bombing of Hiroshima, and three days later Nagasaki.

But a large contingent of Western mourners attended to show their solidarity against nuclear weapons.

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