Hiroshima mourns victims of atomic bomb

Capping a day of solemn remembrance, thousands of paper lanterns representing the souls of the dead were floated on a Hiroshima river Saturday near ground zero for the world's first atomic bomb attack 60 years ago.

The annual lantern observance brought to a close a full day of memorials, ranging from official gatherings to a "die-in" and dozens of small-scale peace rallies.

At 8:15 a.m., the moment of the 1945 blast, the city's trolleys stopped. More than 55,000 people, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, observed a moment of silence at Peace Memorial Park that was broken only by the ringing of a bronze bell.

A flock of doves was released into the sky. Then wreaths and ladles of water — symbolizing the suffering of those who died in the atomic inferno — were offered at a simple, arch-shaped stone monument at the center of the park.

"I offer deep prayers from my heart to those who were killed," Koizumi said, vowing that Japan would be a leader in the international movement against nuclear proliferation.

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, an outspoken critic of Koizumi's hawkish foreign policy, was more emotional in his "Peace Declaration." He gave an empassioned plea for the abolition of all nuclear weapons* and said the United States, Russia and other members of the nuclear club were "jeopardizing human survival."

* Nuclear weapons turned 60 on July 16... and some of our brightest minds keep finding new ways to reinvent them.

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