AKIPRESS.COM - Nagasaki marked the anniversary of the world's second atomic bombing Thursday with the United Nations' chief and the city's mayor urging global leaders to take concrete steps toward world nuclear disarmament, ABC News reported.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the first United Nations chief to visit Nagasaki, said fears of nuclear war are still present 73 years after the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings and that they should never be repeated. He raised concerns about the slowing effort to denuclearize, saying existing nuclear states are modernizing their arsenals.

"Disarmament processes have slowed and even come to a halt," Guterres told the audience at the Nagasaki peace park. "Here in Nagasaki, I call on all countries to commit to nuclear disarmament and to start making visible progress as a matter of urgency." Then he added: "Let us all commit to making Nagasaki the last place on earth to suffer nuclear devastation."

The bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, was the second U.S. nuclear attack on Japan, killing 70,000 people, three days after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed 140,000. They were followed by Japan's surrender, ending World War II.