KATSUMI KASAHARA

The Mayor of Hiroshima yesterday urged the next US president to support a proposed ban on nuclear weapons as Japan marked the 63rd anniversary of the atomic blast that obliterated the city and killed 140,000 people.

Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba also announced the launch of a two-year study to gauge the psychological toll of the August 6, 1945, attack.

Japan submitted a resolution in the United Nations last year calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Mr Akiba said that 170 nations supported it, with the US as one of only three countries opposed.

"We can only hope that the US president elected this November will listen conscientiously to the majority," Mr Akiba told a crowd of 45,000 that included survivors, local resident s and dignitaries from around the world.

A moment of silence was observed at 8:15am (23:15 GMT on Tuesday), which was the time of the blast.

An estimated 140,000 people were killed instantly or died within a few months after the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped its payload. Japan's official death toll of nearly 260,000 includes injured who have died since.