Hiroshima is a beautiful relaxing city of some million people located on the delta of the Ota river With beautiful gardens and ringed by mountains it has a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere.

However the name, meaning wide island, will forever be linked with one of the most destructive acts of man, when the first atomic bomb used in anger, detonated 600m above the city centre.

The bomb came out of a bright clear sky one August morning, as World War II was grinding to its conclusion. Japan was being heavily bombed in preparation for an expected allied invasion and school children were employed clearing buildings to make fire lanes in the city, meaning many were caught in the open when the destruction came.

The destruction was immense, and well documented in peace museum, which stands in a leafy park just south of the bomb site. The visit is difficult, but vital to understand the suffering and pain that went here. The exhibits are evocative, and show the routines of daily life, cut short that sunny morning. The twisted metal of the lunch box, its contents turned to carbon. The ragged school uniforms, scorched white with the heat. The child's tricycle, now a rusting wreck.

The steps from the local bank are on show. That morning there had been a human being full of life and hope, sitting on the step. The next the life was just a memory, a shadow left on a step being the only remnant of a life cut short.

Over 140,000 died as a result of the bombing. But The pain and the suffering are testament to the horrors of war of any scale.