Thousands of aged survivors are dying each year in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the southwestern city which on August 9, 1945 became the second and so far last place to endure nuclear attack.

"It isn't easy," Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Ito, who was born just two weeks after the nuclear explosion that killed 70,000 people, said of handing down the legacy.

"As those who have direct experience are dying, we have to keep an anti-nuclear message alive," Ito told AFP. "We hope young people will stand up and expand the network."

Nagasaki has been racing against time to record voices of witnesses to keep alive the most powerful memories. Some in the younger generation are also trying to find a solution, but for many born in a completely reconstructed Japan, the nuclear horror is already history.

Tokusaburo Nagai, 39, took over four years ago as the head of Nagai Takashi Memorial Museum commemorating his grandfather. Takashi Nagai, a radiologist, became a local hero for treating victims, despite his own injuries, and pioneering atomic medicine before he died in 1951 at age 43.

"No matter what, we've got to take over the baton," Nagai said at the museum, which displays his grandfather's personal mementoes and panels describing his achievements.

"But to be honest I never got a real sense of how terrible the atomic bomb was," he said.

Nagai narrates the tragedy for visitors to the museum, which is near ground zero of the plutonium bomb the United States codenamed "Fat Man."

He acknowledged, however, that his stories are no match compared with aging survivors who can relate first-hand the horror of the bomb so powerful it vaporized many of its victims.

"If people see the radiation scars of the survivors, they can easily realize the terror. Literally, seeing is believing," he said.

"But I'm afraid that people may not be moved by what young people like me are talking about," he said. "I have nothing to show with my hands. I just tell what I heard from the survivors even if I'm the grandson of such a great man. I feel a dilemma."

According to the city, the number of survivors has declined to fewer than 50,000, with their average age 73, meaning they were 13 when the bomb hit. About 2,700 survivors died last year and a similar number of deaths is likely to be recorded this year.

The Nagasaki A-Bomb Sufferers' Council, one of the biggest associations for survivors in Nagasaki, plans to launch a forum by the victims' descendants in an effort to maintain the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.

"The role to be played by the second generation is crucial," said Fumie Kakida, vice director of the council, whose mother suffered from the bombing.

The council sent a notice to about 15,000 survivors through their community paper calling for their descendants to gather and discuss ways for the young to preserve the memories.

"We received answers from some 100 people saying they want to do so, but in fact only one person showed up," a disappointed Kakida said. "It's important but we cannot force them."

Survivors fear the legacy of the bombing will disappear.

"On the day when Japan commemorates the 100th anniversary of the atomic bombing in 40 years' time, no survivors will be left on Earth," said Sumiteru Taniguchi, 76, who still suffers acute pain from the attack.

"I'm afraid to be forgotten," said Taniguchi, a former postman, who has thick radiation scars all over his back except for his waist which was protected by his thick leather postman's belt.

"I still have pain on my body," he said. "For me, the event has yet to end."

Taniguchi pointed out that some survivors and their descendants still face discrimination, despite medical proof that radioactive exposure is not contagious nor inheritable.

"Some survivors still hide behind their background. Such discrimination helps discourage survivors and their children from campaigning against nuclear weapons."

Kinichiro Hamasato, 82, a radiologist and former student of Takashi Nagai, said it cannot be helped that memories of the atomic bombing will gradually fade away as time goes by.

"But we must not put out the torch for good. We must not," Hamasato said.

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