55,000 Mark Nuclear Blast at Hiroshima

A moment of silence enveloped Hiroshima and doves soared over the once-devastated city today as Japan recalled the blinding flash 42 years ago that jarred the world into the nuclear age.

“I hope that on this day, the world’s 5 billion people will think about what happened here,” Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone told about 55,000 people gathered at Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park.

“I pledge that we will build peace on this earth,” he added.

At 8:15 a.m., the city of 1 million observed a moment of silence, punctured by the solemn tolling of a bell, as it remembered the more than 140,000 victims of the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing.

A U.S. B-29 bomber dropped “Little Boy,” the first atomic bomb used against humans, on this regional military headquarters for southern Japan. Three days later, a second U.S. bomb devastated Nagasaki, killing an estimated 70,000 people.

The Japanese government surrendered unconditionally on Aug. 15, 1945, to end World War II.

Hiroshima has been rebuilt and “the oleanders are blooming now as if nothing happened here,” Nakasone said. “But in the minds of the people, the scars of the bombing must still remain.”

Anti-nuclear marchers strode along city streets and mourners prayed at shrines and temples throughout the day. At dusk, citizens set thousands of candle-lit paper lanterns afloat on the Motoyasugawa River next to the peace park.

The lanterns, each inscribed with a victim’s name, represented the souls of those who died--and called to mind the thousands of corpses that clogged the city’s rivers in the hours and days after the A-bomb explosion.