By Eriko Sugita
Hiroshima - Out of the ashes of Hiroshima came a rebuke and a plea to United States President George Bush on Tuesday morning: Come here "to confirm with his own eyes what nuclear weapons can do to human beings".
It was here, 57 years ago on Tuesday, that this Japanese city became the target of the world's first nuclear attack and 140 000 people died in an instant.
On Tuesday morning Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba marked the anniversary with a sharp rebuke for what critics charge is Bush's unilateral diplomacy - and an invitation to Bush to visit the city destroyed in a nuclear inferno 57 years ago.
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In an annual ritual of remembrance for the more than 220 000 people who ultimately died from the blast, a crowd gathered at Hiroshima's Peace Park, near ground zero where the bomb was dropped.
The Peace Bell tolled at 8.15am - the precise moment the Enola Gay B-29 warplane dropped the bomb - as the crowd stood and bowed their heads for a minute of silence in the still summer heat.
Akiba lamented the world's growing tendency to forget the horrors of the atomic bomb and warned his audience that the dangers of nuclear war were rising.
"For the victims of the atomic bomb... once again, a hot and bitter summer has returned," Akiba said.
"With the return of the heat, the memories of that misery also return."
He added that the possibility of history repeating itself had grown since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Akiba invited Bush to Hiroshima "to confirm with his own eyes what nuclear weapons can do to human beings" and lashed out at Washington's go-it-alone stance.
"America has not been given the right to impose a 'Pax Americana' and to decide the fate of the world," Akiba said.
"Rather, we, the people of the world, have the right to insist that we have not given you the authority to destroy the world."
The anniversary comes days after a reminder that Japan was researching an atomic bomb during World War 2, and just months after a top politician hinted Tokyo might someday abandon its decades-old ban on nuclear weapons.
Three days later, a US bomber dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 70 000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15 1945, ending World War 2. - Reuters
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