During his visit to Japan on Saturday, Pope Francesco focused on the victims of the US bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and called on the world to get rid of nuclear weapons.

The visit again highlights the plight of the two cities, the circumstances in which they were bombed, the number of victims and the military and political repercussions.

At 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb dropped by the US B-29 Inola Jay exploded in downtown Hiroshima, Japan.

Located 700 kilometers west of Tokyo, its bombing marked the beginning of the nuclear age and was also the first use of nuclear weapons against humans.

The four-ton atomic bomb caused unprecedented destruction and destruction, killing tens of thousands of people as soon as it was dropped.

By the end of that year some 140,000 people had died from the attack and its aftermath.

Just three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, a B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb codenamed "Fat Man" and detonated over the coastal city of Nagasaki. About 74,000 people lost their lives there by the end of that year as well.

Alongside the Japanese, the victims of the bombings included tens of thousands of Koreans, students from China and Southeast Asia, and American and European prisoners of war.

Nuclear attacks increased pressure on Japan to surrender, which occurred on August 15, 1945, in the final days of World War II.

On Sunday, Pope Francisco called on the world to eliminate nuclear weapons in a speech in the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

People inspect a poster of a photograph of where the nuclear bomb fell on Hiroshima (Getty Images)

Pain and horror
From where the atomic bomb exploded, Pope Francesco said, "This place has made us deeply aware of the pain and terror that we humans can cause to each other."

On Saturday, the Pope began a four-day visit to Japan. "Security, peace and stability are among the most desirable things of the human heart, and possessing weapons of mass destruction and other nuclear weapons is not the answer to this desire. ".

Later, Pope Francisco will move to Hiroshima, where a "meeting for peace" is scheduled.

On Monday, the Pope is scheduled to meet Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.

It is the first visit by the Pope to Japan in 38 years. Pope John Paul II visited Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tokyo in 1981.