Hiroshima remembers atomic bomb victims on 80th anniversary
The annual ceremony will be held at the city's Peace Memorial Park. Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru and representatives from a record 120 countries and regions are expected to attend. That includes nuclear powers, such as the United States and the United Kingdom.
As is the case every year, an updated list of atomic bomb victims will be placed inside the park's cenotaph. It will include those who survived the bombing but died over the past year. The list now has 349,246 names.
There will then be a moment of silence at 8:15 a.m., the exact time the bomb went off in 1945.
There are now less than 100,000 atomic bomb survivors, or hibakusha, alive today. Their average age is over 86 years old. As time goes on, it will become increasingly difficult to hear their stories directly.
A survivors' group, Nihon Hidankyo, won last year's Nobel Peace Prize. There was hope the award would give momentum to the global nuclear abolition movement.
However, nuclear powers are leaning on deterrence and threatening to use their arsenals. Russia has continually hinted at using the weapons since invading Ukraine.
Hiroshima will remember the victims by calling, once again, for an end to nuclear weapons.
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