People pray in front of the cenotaph for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan (Reuters)

A peace bell tolled at 8:15 a.m. local time, the time a US warplane dropped the atomic bomb, known as Little Boy, on Hiroshima. Participants held a moment of silence to mourn 140,000 victims. At the ceremony, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe asked the youth to visit the city to witness the reality of atomic bombs. He reiterated Japan’s role in counter nuclear from spreading as the only country to experience nuclear attacks. PM Abe said Japan is committed to the three non-nuclear principles of not possessing, not producing, and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan. He stressed the importance to push up the implementation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (voanews)

On August 6, 1945, the US dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over Hiroshima and three days later, the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. On August 15 the same year, Japan surrendered, putting an end of World War II. Until March, 2016, about 174,080 people have been exposed to radioactive and their average life expectancy was around 80.