Sixty-four years ago yesterday the city of Hiroshima in western Japan was destroyed in the first-ever wartime use of a nuclear weapon. Delivered by the U.S. Air Force bomber Enola Gay, the 15-kiloton bomb's explosion flattened everything within 2 miles of ground zero and sending a now-characteristic "mushroom cloud" 20,000 feet into the air. An estimated 70,000 people were killed immediately, with more than 70,000 more dying from radiation poisoning and other injuries by 1950.

The video above is a clip from a CG recreation of the city, constructed by Masaki Tanabe to show what Hiroshima looked like before the explosion. Tanabe's house was located close to the center of the blast (he was not in the city at the time), nearby what is now the city's most famous landmark, the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. The hall was was left partially standing after the explosion and turned into a memorial site. The recreation also shows what the building looked like inside. Tanabe said that his objective in creating the sequence was to teach young people about the horrors of nuclear war by showing a representation of what was lost.

You can also see another gallery of photos, with captions and commentary, here.