'A dazzling flash, brighter than the sun'… What it was like to survive the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
Survivors recall horror of the devastating atomic bomb blast 70 years ago
Seven decades ago, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It almost instantly levelled most of the city and killed as many as 140,000 people.
Three days later, on August 9, another American bomber dropped a nuclear device on the city of Nagasaki, killing 40,000 to 80,000 people.
The devastation was followed by the second world war's swift conclusion.
It's seared into the collective global memory - no other time in history has a nuclear weapon been used in war.
The simple fact of the atomic bomb's awesome power went on to shape a half-century of cold war geopolitics.
The justification for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings remains the source of perennial historical study and debate.
