Japan has commemorated the 72nd anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the south-western city of Nagasaki, amid the growing threat of a nuclear attack from North Korea.
Thousands of participants at the ceremony offered a minute's silence in memory of victims at 11.02 am on Wednesday, the exact moment when an atomic bomb was dropped on the city on August 9, 1945.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue and survivors of the bombing were among those attending the ceremony.
Taue hailed the adoption of the first international treaty banning nuclear weapons by 122 United Nations members earlier this year, but also criticised Abe's government for refusing to sign the agreement.
"As the only country in the world to have suffered wartime atomic bombings, I urge the Japanese government to reconsider the policy of relying on the nuclear umbrella and to join the Nuclear Prohibition Treaty at the earliest possible opportunity," Taue said at the ceremony.
The nuclear attack on Nagasaki, which killed an estimated 74,000 people by the end of 1945, came three days after US forces dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
The two attacks increased the pressure on Japan to surrender, which it did on August 15, 1945.
This year's ceremony was held only hours after US President Donald Trump said North Korea would be met with "fire and fury" if it continued making threats, and Pyongyang retaliated by saying it was "carefully examining" a pre-emptive strike against the US territory of Guam.
