At 8.15am, on August 6 in Hiroshima, the sound of a bell plaintively blown by the wind tinkles through the screeching of cicadas as the silence begins for the victims of the world's first atomic bomb.
On that day, in 1945, the infamous mushroom cloud - and the vaporising heat, wind and fury of the bomb - swept 100,000 people from the face of the Earth, while another 40,000 died in lingering agony from burns or radiation poisoning. Today, others still live with painful physical and mental scars of the explosion.
Yet, 62 years on, nuclear weapons are still a dangerous fact of life. Scientists in January advanced the hands on the Doomsday Clock by two minutes to stand at five minutes to midnight. Midnight on the clock is the end of the world.
North Korea has reluctantly agreed to shut down its nuclear facilities, but Iran rejoices in playing the devilish hooligan and pushing its nuclear programme, which is 'peaceful', according to its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But who can trust a leader in Tehran with a messianic streak?
Of equal concern, Pakistan is fragile and infected with Islamic dissidents. There is a real worry that Islamic radicals dedicated to holy war may, through their army contacts, get access to nuclear technology, even if they cannot - yet - get their hands on the government.
Yuichi Seirai, a writer whose father was a victim of the atomic bomb, wrote: 'When mankind dropped the atomic bomb, I think people abandoned God and their humanity.'