HIROSHIMA, Japan — Heads bowed in prayer and memory, the citizens of this self-styled City of Peace fell silent at 8:15 local time this morning, 60 years from the instant of the atomic flash that vaporized the heart of their city and dragged mankind over the precipice into the nuclear age.
Temple bells that had been ringing for the dead stopped to mark the moment when an American B-29 bomber dropped its atomic cargo over Hiroshima, killing 70,000 people on the spot from concussion and fire and debris. Another 70,000 died within months from the effects of radiation.
It was also an act that many argue hastened an end to a world war that had already claimed millions.
A onetime garrison town for Japan's Imperial Army, Hiroshima has since turned its tragedy into a platform for peace and nuclear disarmament. The cry was made more poignant this year by the advancing ages of the \o7hibakusha\f7, or "bomb-affected people."
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba called the ceremony a "time of inheritance, of awakening and of commitment, in which we inherit the commitment of the \o7hibakusha \f7to the abolition of nuclear weapons and recommit ourselves to take action."
But there is also an uneasy sense among many here that Japan's collective pacifist voice has become shaky with age. The last witnesses to the atomic attacks are increasingly infirm or dying, with little sign that the country's unique experience of having been attacked with atomic weapons resonates with younger generations.
"I think they regard preventing war as someone else's problem," said Taichi Ueno, 24, part of a small group of peace activists called P-Souls who traveled to Hiroshima for the ceremony. "About war, they say, 'It wouldn't happen to me.' "
Indeed, peace activists note a ritualistic feel to the annual commemoration. The national broadcaster, NHK, carried the ceremony live, but cut away from the speeches appealing for peace after just 20 minutes, returning to its regularly scheduled drama series called "Fight." Even some residents of Hiroshima, where what the Japanese call peace education in schools is more intensely followed than elsewhere, sound jaded.
"Only on this day are people enthusiastic about peace -- that's it," said Yuki Shibazaki, 17, as she gossiped with friends around the Peace Memorial Museum after the ceremony. Her high school class was supposed to designate two representatives to attend Saturday's ceremony, but there were no volunteers.
