Photo/Illutration The second floor and a clock tower of the Shimomura clock shop are seen after the first floor was completely crushed after the building collapsed in the atomic bombing. Built in 1928, the two-story reinforced concrete building boasted a massive clock tower, which became a beloved landmark. This photo was taken in present-day Naka Ward between Aug. 10 and Aug. 11, 1945. (Provided by Hajime Miyatake)

HIROSHIMA--A special exhibition is being held to showcase images and videos documenting this western city’s destruction from the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing ahead of the 80th anniversary of the event.

The display, themed on visual archives captured through photographs and film, opened on Feb. 28 at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward.

Admission is free. The exhibit will continue through Sept. 16. The anniversary of the atomic bombing falls on Aug. 6.

Hundreds of photos, along with film footage, have been nominated for registration in UNESCO’s Memory of the World.

Hiroshima city, in collaboration with The Asahi Shimbun, Chugoku Shimbun, Mainichi Newspapers, RCC Broadcasting and Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK), specifically sought to include 1,532 photographs and two videos on the Memory of the World list.

The visual materials were created by residents and news reporters between the day of the atomic bombing and the end of 1945.

The exhibition features 86 photographs and two videos selected from the materials submitted to UNESCO.

The event is sponsored by The Asahi Shimbun, Chugoku Shimbun, Mainichi Newspapers, RCC Broadcasting and NHK’s Hiroshima branch, as well as Kyodo News.

The exhibit consists of three sections.

The first part highlights the devastation of Hiroshima and features images held by a group founded in 1978 whose members recorded the impact of the nuclear strike on the city.

One of the members, a youngster in those days, had been mobilized to a military facility. Others include a Hiroshima prefectural official and a photographer caught up in military duties during warfare.

Their pictures captured the mushroom cloud from various angles that formed after the bombing as well as a severely burned individual and a soldier suffering from acute exposure to radiation.

An image taken by a Chugoku Shimbun reporter named Yoshito Matsushige portrays the dire situation of city residents on the day of the attack.

The second section casts a spotlight on the activities of reporters from The Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Newspapers, among others, who arrived in Hiroshima in the aftermath of the bombing.

Hajime Miyatake, a photographer with The Asahi Shimbun’s Osaka headquarters, reached Hiroshima on Aug. 9, three days after the attack. Miyatake captured images of a boy receiving treatment at a hospital and a burned mother and child being carried by the husband on a cart.

Lensman Yukio Kunihira from Mainichi Newspapers’ Osaka main office also reached Hiroshima on Aug. 9. He snapped images of an injured girl as well as smoldering ruins near the company’s Hiroshima branch.

The third section covers a walk through the destroyed townscape by an education ministry special committee set up in the aftermath of the bombing.

Accompanying the committee in October 1945, Shigeo Hayashi took pictures of the devastated city. Shunkichi Kikuchi photographed a sister and brother who became bald from radiation exposure.

Ryo Koyama, a curator at the academics and art department of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, pointed to an image snapped by an atomic bomb survivor whose family perished.

“These materials have been handed down to this day as a result of the diligence of people who were desperate to preserve them,” he said. “I want visitors to understand the significance of keeping a record of events.”

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