HIROSHIMA, Sept 2: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi laid flowers on Tuesday at a memorial to the Hiroshima atomic bombing, becoming the highest-ranking sitting US official to pay respects at the site.

Pelosi, a Democrat who is the third top US official after the president and vice-president, bowed both before and after laying a bunch of carnations and white lilies on a hot sunny day in the south-western Japanese city.

Pelosi was invited to Hiroshima which was devastated by a US atomic bomb on Aug 6, 1945, near the end of World War II for a meeting of parliament speakers of the Group of Eight major industrial nations.

“The visit to Hiroshima is a powerful reminder of the destructiveness of war, underscoring the urgency for all nations to promote peace and to build a better world,” Pelosi wrote in a museum guestbook.

Schoolchildren waved the flags of Japan, the United States and other G8 nations and sang hymns calling for world peace after Pelosi and other parliament speakers offered flowers in honour of those killed in the bombing.

The speakers then headed to the Hiroshima bombing museum, where Akihiro Takahashi, 77, recounted his experience of living through the world’s first nuclear attack.

Pelosi appeared emotional at times, nodding and grimacing as Takahashi spoke and showed horrific images of bombing victims who were covered by severe burns or who had lost their limbs and eyeballs.

After Takahashi’s speech, Pelosi shook his hand and quietly moved her lips to say: “Thank you.”

Takahashi, who once served as the chief of the museum, said he wanted to know what the G8 speakers, particularly Pelosi, thought about his presentation.

“She is the number three person in line to press the nuclear button,” he later told reporters.

“For us atomic bombing victims, all nuclear weapons are evil. I really wanted to know how much they understood after seeing the museum and hearing my story,” he said.

More than 140,000 people were killed in the attack on Hiroshima, either instantly or in the days and weeks ahead from radiation or horrific burns.—AFP