Bells tolled in Hiroshima on Thursday as Japan marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing that marked one of the closing chapters of World War II.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and foreign delegates were among the tens of thousands gathered in Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park to observe a moment of silence at 8:15 am local time (2315 GMT), when the detonation turned the western Japanese city into an inferno.