Tomorrow, March 11th, marks three years since a tsunami devastated northeast Japan, but today (Monday) Japanese people honored victims of another disaster.

A special service was held in Tokyo to mark the sixty-ninth anniversary of the firebombing of Tokyo in World War Two.

Considered the single deadliest incident of the war, an estimated one hundred thousand people died in the firebombing on March 10th, 1945.

The US “Operation Meetinghouse” destroyed sixteen square miles of Tokyo in a single night.

Three hundred notables and survivors of the victims gathered for the service.

Newly elected governor of Tokyo, Yoichi Masuzoe expressed hopes that people would make greater efforts toward peace and share with future generations the terrible consequences of war.

Those gathered offered incense to the dead in accordance with Buddhist custom and prayed for peace in the world.