Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi emphasized Japan’s commitment to its long-held nonnuclear principles in a speech Thursday in Hiroshima, paying tribute to those killed and injured 81 years after the city was devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb.

The prime minister joined hibakusha, bereaved families, foreign and local representatives at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, where participants observed a minute of silence at 8:15 a.m., the exact time when the bomb exploded over the southwestern city on Aug. 6, 1945, leaving an estimated 140,000 ultimately dead. Three days later, another 74,000 were dead by the end of the year after a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

“The devastation caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the indescribable suffering endured by so many people, must never be repeated,” Takaichi said in a speech.