The world is observing the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US in 1945.

The atomic bombing of the cities on 6 and 9 August, which ended the World War II, killed more than 200,000 people and maimed thousands more.

Hiroshima Nagasaki: Then and now in Pictures

A ceremony will be held on Thursday, 6 August, to mark the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing. The event is expected to be attended by representatives from more than 100 countries.

On the 70th anniversary of the bombing, check out some quotes from famous personalities on Hiroshima-Nagasaki nuclear bombing: 

Images of Death and Destruction From 70 Years Ago

Dropping those atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime. -- George Wald - American scientist

We are still living in the aftershock of Hiroshima, people are still the scars of history. --Edward Bond - English Playwright

Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima. -- Pablo Picasso - Spanish painter

Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller had passed over it and squashed it out of existence.

Hiroshima had a profound effect upon me. -- Wilfred Burchett- Australian Journalist

Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist. -- Daisaku Ikeda - Former president of the Nichiren Buddhist Soka Gakkai

It was because of my deep concerns about nuclear weapons that I went to Hiroshima. And then I was astounded in Hiroshima to find that nobody had really studied it. -- Robert Jay Lifton - American psychiatrist

 I think the way to think about the impact of Hiroshima is to think about it as a sudden shift in the balance of power. -- John Lewis Gaddis - Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University