Obama first US President to visit world's first atomic bombing site at Hiroshima

Scripting history by becoming the first U.S. President to visit the world's first atomic bombing site, Barack Obama on Friday said 71 years ago death fell from the sky and mankind showed that it had the means to destroy itself.

"The image of a mushroom cloud reminds us of humanity's contradiction; how easily we learn to justify violence in the name of some higher cause. The same discoveries of science can be turned into ever more efficient killing machines," said Obama.

Speaking about the consequences of the Second World War, Obama said, "In the span of a few years, some 60 million people would die; men, women and children no different from us shot, beaten, bombed, and gassed."

"We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment - the bomb fell. Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering. Someday the voices will no longer be with us to bare witness, but the memory must never fade. That memory fuels our imagination. It allows us to change. Since that fateful day we have made choices that give us hope. The US and Japan have forged not only an alliance but a friendship," he added.

Remembering the history, the visiting President asserted how precious peace is.

"And yet that is not enough. We must re imagine our connection to one another as one human race. We can learn, we can chose, we can tell our children a different story, one that make cruelty less acceptable," he said, adding, Those who died were like us. Ordinary people understand that. They don't want more war. They want the advance of science to improve life not end it. What a precious thing peace is."

His remarks came after he laid a wreath on the cenotaph bearing an inscription, "Let all the souls here rest in peace; For we shall not repeat the evil" in Japanese.

In the museum's guest book, Obama wrote that he hoped the world will "find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons.?"

He bowed his head and closed his eyes for half a minute or so after laying the wreath.

Obama, however did not offer an apology for the US's decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 that killed more than 140,000 people in the city by the end of the year.