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GV Cenotaph in Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park
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SV PAN Marchers carrying banners saying "Pilgrimage to Hiroshima 1980", and banging drums
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CU PAN Anti-nuclear bomb campaigner, Philip Noel-Baker seated with fellow-campaigners
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CU & SV Japanese speaker addressing rally (3 shots)
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GV & SV Mourners at memorial service for bomb victims watch Hiroshima Mayor Takeshi Araki and officials lay wreath at cenotaph (4 shots)
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SV Children laying flowers at cenotaph
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SV & CU Children of bomb victim toll Peace Bell as Mourners observe one minute's silence (4 shots)
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LV Released doves - fly into air
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LV & CU Eternal flame burning as mourners pray during minute of silence (4 shots)
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Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: In Japan, another two thousand two hundred and seventy nine deaths were officially attributed to the effects of the first nuclear bomb, in the 35th year since it destroyed Hiroshima. The names of the dead were inscribed on the cenotaph at the city's Peace Memorial Park on Wednesday (6 August), near the spot where the bomb, called "Little Boy" fell in 1945.

SYNOPSIS: In the 35 years since "Little Boy" destroyed Hiroshima nearly one-hundred-thousand deaths have been attributed to the bomb. But more than twice that number were mourned by their families, friends and these peace marchers on Tuesday (5 August). Over a third of a million survivors still bear the scars of the world's first nuclear holocaust, ad no one knows how many more will die as its result.

Anti-bomb campaigners who have long predicted the self-destruction of mankind, called for a way of restricting nuclear armament. Such sentiments were endorsed by the Tokyo government and echoed a day later (Wednesday, 6 August) by Hiroshima's mayor Takeshi Araki. He proposed a world peace conference under United Nations auspices, when the General Assembly meets on disarmament in two years time.

Mr. Araki, a survivor of the Hiroshima attack, laid a wreath during the memorial service for bomb victims. As supporter of disarmament, he said inter-government distrust was at the root of what he called "the folly of the arms race". Mr. araki concluded that it had helped to bring the world near total nuclear destruction. Almost 40 thousand people attended the memorial service, and with many more people throughout Hiroshima, they observed a minute's silence for the dead.

Children brought flowers to the cenotaph at 8.15 a.m., the exact time the bomb was dropped 35 years ago, everything came to a halt. Trains, cars and factories stopped and nearly 900-thousand people paused for a minute of silent respect broken only by the Bell of Peace, tolled by the children of one of the bomb's victims.

Doves of peace were released during the ceremonies at Peace Memorial Park, and elsewhere in the world millions remembered the deaths caused by the first of two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, which forced an end to the fighting in the Pacific and World War Two.