Japan marks the 70th anniversary of WWII fire bombing raid

People in Tokyo have gathered at an event marking the Great Tokyo Air Raids of 1945, the most deadly in history.

Tuesday marks the 70th anniversary of that U.S. bombing campaign on the Japanese capital, in which more than 100 thousand people were killed in a single night, many of them women and children.

The bombings annihilated a wide swathe of northeastern Tokyo, a region packed with small factories and houses made of wood and paper.

Michiko Kiyo-oka was a 21-year-old government worker living in Asakusa district who survived the raids by hiding under a bridge.

Now 91, she is determined to takes a stand regarding her country's wartime history while she still can.

"Everyone is getting so old, so if they (the government) doesn't hurry, we'll all be dead. Maybe they're waiting for us to die. But I feel very dissatisfied with the way the government has handled this," said Kiyo-oka.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the ceremony. He himself has faced pressure recently to offer a wartime apology, as many worry about Abe's moves to recast wartime history in a less apologetic tone.