TOKYO -- The atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later brought a scale of destruction the world had never seen. Many who survived the blasts died in the weeks, months and years that followed. Japan surrendered six days after the Nagasaki bombing, bringing an end to World War II.

When the first atomic bomb detonated 80 years ago in Hiroshima, thousands of the dead and dying were brought to the small, rural island of Ninoshima.