Solemn memorial for Nagasaki dead

A SIREN wailed and a bronze bell rang as Nagasaki marked the moment 60 years ago when an American plane dropped a plutonium bomb, killing 80,000 people and sealing Japan’s Second World War defeat.

About 6,000 people, including hundreds of survivors, crowded into Nagasaki’s Peace Memorial Park, a few hundred yards from the centre of the blast, for a solemn remembrance and moment of silence.

When the silence ended, Nagasaki mayor Iccho Itoh had some angry words for the leaders of the nuclear powers, especially the US.