JAPAN marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima yesterday, with Mayor Kazumi Matsui renewing calls for global nuclear disarmament.

Ten of thousands of people stood and observed a minute’s silence at 8.15 am, the time of the attack, in the city’s Peace Park near the centre of the blast. Dozens of doves were released as a symbol of peace.

Some 80,000 people were killed at Hiroshima by the explosion and resulting fires, along with 40,000 in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki three days later.

Tens of thousands more died of radiation sickness in the following weeks and from cancers since — the death toll approaches 300,000 today.

But the casualty figures convey neither the indescribable horror of the bombings, with victims’ skin hanging off like rags and their eyes melted from their sockets, nor the individual tragedy of each death.

Mr Matsui called nuclear weapons “the absolute evil and ultimate inhumanity” that must be abolished, and criticised nuclear powers for maintaining arsenals totalling more 15,000 weapons.

“President Obama and other policy-makers, please come to the A-bombed cities, hear the hibakusha (surviving victims) with your own ears and encounter the reality of the atomic bombings,” he said.

The mayor also criticised government initiatives to remilitarise Japan, which go against its pacifist post-war constitution.

“We must establish a broad national security framework that does not rely on use of force but is based on trust,” he said.

The World Peace Council (WPC) also called for nuclear disarmament in an open letter on Wednesday.

WPC president Socorro Gomes reiterated the the council’s solidarity with the victims of the “war crime perpetrated by US imperialism,” which goes unpunished to this day.

She said that, while the US was apparently reducing its nuclear arsenal, it was in fact increasing its capacity to kill people and its global reach.

Ms Gomes put the blame for the failure of the latest nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference this year squarely on the shoulders of the United States and undeclared nuclear power Israel.

“The goal of turning the Middle East into a zone free of nuclear weapons was enough to prompt Israel’s response, derailing the process through the US,” she said.