Officials in the city of Hiroshima have begun their annual campaign to trace the relatives of atomic bomb victims whose remains have been identified but not yet claimed.

The officials on Thursday sent out a list of the names of 814 victims of the 1945 bombing of the city to municipalities across Japan.

Japan's health and welfare ministry says the average age of survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki has topped 83.

The ministry every year surveys the holders of certificates for "hibakusha," or victims of atomic bombings.

NHK has learned that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has given up on his plan to attend a ceremony in Hiroshima City, western Japan, to mark the 1945 US atomic bombing of the city.

Sources say the decision is due to the coronavirus pandemic. Japan has banned entry by foreign nationals from the United States. Even if the UN chief were allowed to enter Japan, he would be asked to self-isolate for 14 days after arriving.

A former Japanese fisherman exposed to radiation from a US nuclear test in the Pacific decades ago has died.

Masaho Ikeda was aboard the tuna fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru when the United States conducted the hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in 1954.