140,000 died in Hiroshima 80 years ago. No-one called it genocide

On the anniversary of the first nuclear-bomb attack on August 6, 1945, spare a moment for the human tragedy that was meant to bring the Second World War to an end. The immediate death toll was 78,000. It continued to rise over decades as 60,000 more suffered premature deaths from nuclear fallout.

The Japanese Government refused to acquiesce. It took a second bomb on Nagasaki, with 40,000 deaths, to achieve a Japanese surrender.

The victims were commemorated in music in 1961 by a young Polish composer, Krzysztof Penderecki.

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