Hiroshima – Minoru Hasebe, a 94-year-old former catcher for what is now the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, expressed his wish for continued peace as the team’s home city marked 81 years since it suffered an atomic bombing.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the day of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, in the closing days of World War II, Hasebe, then a high school student, was at his home roughly 9 kilometers from the hypocenter of the blast.

At 8:15 a.m., a sudden flash of light lit up his room, and he heard a loud rumble. Hasebe thought that a bomb had fallen and went to the bank of a nearby river, where he saw a mushroom cloud.