Remembering the horror of Hiroshima

Col. Paul Tibbetts waving from the pilot's seat of Enola Gay moments before takeoff to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. (Photo by Richard Cannon/Us Air Force/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Seventy years ago today, the first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by a United States aircraft called the Enola Gay. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

More than 200,000 people were killed, and many thousands more faced a lifetime of pain from the effects of the radiation.

Today, communities across Yorkshire will stop to remember both those who died, and survived, the bombings, which led to the withdrawal of Japan from World War Two.

A massive column of billowing smoke, thousands of feet high, mushrooms over Nagasaki, Japan, after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Aug. 9, 1945. (AP Photo/U.S.Signal Corps) define/conflict

The Lord Mayor of Bradford, Coun Joanne Dodds will lay a wreath at a commemoration event in City Park at 1.20pm.

Each year the city of Hiroshima holds a Peace Memorial Ceremony to pray for the peaceful repose of the victims, for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and for lasting world peace. As part of this ceremony the Mayor of Hiroshima delivers a Peace Declaration. This message will be relayed by Coun Dodds at the event in Norfolk Gardens.

She said: “Hiroshima Day has been marked for many years in Bradford. The event gives people across the district the opportunity to come together to reflect and to remember, which is especially important on the 70th anniversary.”

The Lord Mayor of York, Sonja Crisp, will also read the address at a similar ceremony marking the anniversary on the forecourt of St Michael le Belfry church, York at 8.15pm. A vigil will also be held at Keighley Town Hall Square from 8am to 9am.

The shell of a building stands amid acres of rubble in this view of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. (AP Photo/Mitsugi Kishida, File)

Commemorations will take place across the region on Sunday, when the anniversary of the Nagasaki bomb is marked.

Calder Valley CND will host readings, song and poetry at the Packhouse Bridge in Hebden Bridge, from 3pm. People will also gather at an event organised by Leeds CND Park Square in Leeds at 10.30am; and at a Peace Picnic at the Japanese Walled Garden at Meersbrook Park, Sheffield, at 1pm.