Japan marks day atomic bombs fell

Tokyo urged to remember its atrocities during WWII

TOKYO - A bell tolled on Monday in Hiroshima as Japan marked 73 years since the world's first atomic bombing, with the city's mayor warning that rising nationalism worldwide threatened peace.

The skies over Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park were clear, just as they were on Aug 6, 1945, when a US B-29 bomber dropped its deadly payload on the port city dotted with military installations, ultimately killing 140,000 people.

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, standing at the park near ground zero for the annual ceremony, appealed for a world without nuclear weapons and sounded the alarm over increasing nationalism.

"If the human family forgets history or stops confronting it, we could again commit a terrible error. That is precisely why we must continue talking about Hiroshima," Matsui said.

"Efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons must continue." His call, however, highlighted Japan's contradictory relationship with nuclear weapons.