NAGASAKI, Aug. 2 Kyodo -- People in Nagasaki on Friday commemorated the death of 5,529 students and teachers in the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of the city, prior to the 57th anniversary of the attack next week.

Mourners offered flowers and folded-paper cranes after praying silently at 11:02 a.m., the time the bomb exploded over the southwestern Japanese city on Aug. 9, 1945.

About 320 teachers and elementary, junior high and high school students from 25 schools in the city took part in the memorial ceremony at the Peace Hall in the city.

The annual memorial ceremony began in 1982 after teachers in Nagasaki Prefecture built a monument near the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum dedicated to students and their teachers who died in the bombing. This year marked the 21st ceremony of its kind.

The monument is now under repair in Toyama Prefecture.

The attack on Nagasaki came three days after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Many survivors still suffer physical and mental anguish as a result of the bombings.