Memorial service held for school victims of A-bombing
Aug. 4, Kyodo - A memorial service was held Wednesday for some 1,000 pupils and teachers of national elementary schools in Hiroshima who died from the atomic bombing of the city in 1945.
About 900 people, including former pupils
and relatives of the victims, attended the
ceremony at a monument in the Peace Memorial
Park in the city.The names of five people who died in the blast were confirmed during the past year, bringing the total names in a registry to 1,028.
Naofumi Awamura, 11, a sixth-year pupil at a local elementary school, pledged in an address at the ceremony to continue studying ''so that the tragedy never occurs again.''
Akira Ishida, a representative of a committee which maintains the monument, said, ''As the number of bereaved family members decreases throughout the years, it is moving to see young people carry on the tradition.''
Children from 80 elementary and junior high schools offered paper cranes to the monument.
An estimated 140,000 died in 1945 as a result of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945 by the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay.
Picture Caption: Memorial ceremony praying for nuclear abolition for "The Monument to the A-bombed Teachers and Students of National Elementary Schools" (Aug 4th, 8:40 AM)
