CAMPAIGNERS scattered white flowers on the River Kent in memory of the victims of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 74 years ago.

Members of the South Lakeland Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament met for a vigil in the peace garden at Abbot Hall, Kendal, to mark the anniversary with poems, readings and songs.

They called on the government to support the immediately stop plans to renew the Trident nuclear weapons programme, and to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

South Lakeland CND secretary Philip Gilligan said: "The indiscriminate deaths and destruction visited on Hiroshima and Nagasaki teach us all we need to know about the evils of nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

"Seventy-four years ago today, humanity awoke to the terror of weapons of unimaginable power, each capable of wiping out whole cities. Since then, we have lived under the shadow of this existential threat, in constant fear of annihilation either by design or even by accidental detonation.

"The warnings of increasing nuclear instability come almost daily, but, thankfully, the overwhelming majority of countries in the world remain nuclear-free and want an end to the threat of mutually assured destruction posed by nuclear-armed states such as the United Kingdom.

"The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons seems on course to become part of international law and, at such a time, it is essential that, as citizens of a nuclear-armed state, we express our strong dissent from our government's nuclear policies. We too need to remain steadfast, vocal and determined in our opposition to nuclear weapons."