Tens of thousands gathered for peace ceremonies in Hiroshima on Wednesday, marking the 69th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the city, as anti-nuclear sentiment runs high in Japan.

Ageing survivors, relatives, government officials and foreign delegates, including US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, observed a moment of silence at 8:15 am local time (2315 GMT), when the detonation turned the western Japanese city into an inferno.

An American B-29 bomber named Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, in one of the final chapters of World War II. It had killed an estimated 140,000 by December that year.

Three days later, the port city of Nagasaki was also bombed, killing an estimated 70,000 people.