The ceremony at a cenotaph in the park dedicated to Korean victims drew about 150 South Korean survivors and relatives of Koreans who died as a result of the atomic bombing.

The participants prayed silently after a book containing the names of 2,592 Korean dead, including four confirmed dead in the past year, was laid at the monument.

Pak So Sung, the chief of the Hiroshima branch of the pro-Seoul Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan), spoke of those Koreans who, because they have left Japan, have been unable to receive benefits under Japan's law to support ''hibakusha'' A-bomb victims.

Pak said the situation is far from satisfactory and the South Koreans ''have never been treated the same as hibakusha residing in Japan.''

An estimated 5,000 A-bomb survivors live in South Korea, North Korea, China, Brazil and the United States. Of these, about 2,300 live in South Korea. Many of the Korean A-bomb victims were brought to Japan as forced laborers during the war.