Barack Obama first serving US president to visit Hiroshima

Barack Obama today became the first serving US president to visit the Japanese city of Hiroshima since the 1945 nuclear bombing which killed more than 140,000 people.

The president, who is in the country for the G7 summit, flew into the nearby Iwakuni US base before travelling to the site of the world’s first wartime atomic bomb.

He laid a wreath at the cenotaph, where an eternal flame remembers the dead. He was also due to meet survivors living in the now-thriving city.

The nuclear bomb was dropped by the US on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Two days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing another 74,000. The total death toll to date, including deaths, from radiation-related cancers, stands at 300,000.

Mr Obama, who will not be issuing an apology for the attack, said: “This is an opportunity to honour the memory of all those lost in the Second World War.

"It’s a chance to pursue peace and security, a world where nuclear weapons would no longer be necessary. And it’s a testament to how even the most painful divides can be bridged.” He said: “Let all souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil.”

Han Jeong-soon, the daughter of one survivor who visited the memorial today, said the suffering had “carried on over the generations”.