Hiroshima today may be a spiritual centre where people come to meditate on the most devastating single act of World War 2, which killed more people than any other conflict in history, but it is also the site of probably the greatest question mark over the ethics of war in human history: can it ever be right to kill so many innocent people, even if you think it was to save many more? They're trying to understand the scale of the destruction unleashed mostly on civilians, destruction so great that people who lived in the city could hardly grasp that it had been caused by a single bomb. The city is now one of the top tourist destinations in Japan, but people don't come for the castle and formal gardens, they come for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and museum. Over 70000 people were killed outright in the initial blast, but as many again are estimated to have died in the following months from burns, radiation sickness, and hunger. Hiroshima, city of seven rivers, is known all over the world as the place where the first atomic bomb was dropped on 6th August, 1945.
