Ceremony commemorates Korean victims of Hiroshima bombing

Hiroshima Aug 5 (IANS) Members of Japan s Korean community held a ceremony on Saturday in memory of Korean victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

About 330 people including relatives of Korean victims of the bombing as well as Korean students joined the event held at a Korean cenotaph in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Efe news quoted an epa journalist as reporting.

During the 30-minute event the participants prayed read out mourning passages and offered flowers at the cenotaph.

The ceremony precedes Sunday s main commemoration which marks the August 6 1945 nuclear attack on Hiroshima. The initial blast killed almost 90 000 people including several thousand Koreans and destroyed most of the city.

The US dropped a second nuclear bomb on the southern Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9 killing at least 40 000 people.

The bombings came days before Japan s surrender on August 15 which brought an end to the Second World War.

--IANS
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