Hiroshima marks 67th anniversary of atomic bombing

Doves fly over the Peace Memorial Park with a view of the gutted atomic-bomb dome at a ceremony in Hiroshima August 6, 2012, to mark the 67th anniversary of the atomic bombing on the city. Mandatory Credit. [Photo/Agencies]

TOKYO - Hiroshima marked the 67th anniversary of the US nuclear attack on Monday morning, people took a moment of silence at 8:15 am local time, the time the bomb was dropped in 1945.

Tens of thousands of people attended the annual ceremony at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to commemorate the 140,000 victims killed by the bomb either instantly or from the burns and radiation sickness after the blast.

The mayor of Hiroshima Kazumi Matsui called on the Japanese government "to establish without delay an energy policy that grads the safety and security of the people," after reading out the Peace Declaration on the ceremony.

The Japanese Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko also gave a speech on the ceremony, saying, "the government will continue to call for the importance of a world free from nuclear weapons and will support activates to hand down the memories of atomic-bomb suffers. "

After the nuclear disaster of 2011 in Fukushima, many atomic bombing survivors oppose all use of the nuclear power, because more people died from the radiation sickness and cancer triggered by radioactive material released in the blast.

The number of survivors from the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is 210,830 of March, down 8,580 from the previous year.