NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — It was a solemn scene Sunday on the New Haven Green as a group remembered those killed in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

“These explosions, in an instant, wiped out tens of thousands of people and buildings for basically a mile in every direction, so a two-mile diameter,” said Henry Lowendorf with the New Haven Peace Council.

Sunday marked 78 years since the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the two cities in an effort to end World War II.

The New Haven Peace Council, which organized the event, showed headlines from the time. Church bells tolled at the exact hour the bombs dropped.

Those in attendance condemned the attacks.

“All of us gathered today believe that the bombing of Hiroshima, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and shortly afterward Nagasaki, was a reprehensible and inexcusable act,” Lowendorf said.

New Haven city leaders offered prayers and statements. Messages from the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagaskaki were also read.