OSLO: Japan`s atomic bomb survivors` group Nihon Hidankyo accepted its Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, pleading for the abolition of nuclear weapons that are resurging as a threat 80 years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

One of the three Nihon Hidanl(yo co-chairs, 92-year-old Nagasaki survivor Terumi Tanaka, demanded `action from governments to achieve` a nuclear-free world.

The prize was presented at a time when countries like Russia which has the world`s largest nuclear arsenal increasingly brandish the atomic threat.

`I am infinitely saddened and angered that the `nuclear taboo` threatens to be broken,` Tanalca told dignitaries at Oslo`s City Hall, some clad in traditional Norwegian bun-ads or Japanese kimonos.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly made nuclear threats as he presses the war in Ukraine.

He signed a decree in November lowering the threshold for using atomic weapons. In a strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro a few days later, the Russian army fired a new hypersonic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, although in this instance it had a regular payload.

Nihon Hidankyo works to rid the planet of the weapons of mass destruction, relying on testimonies from survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as `hibakusha`.

The US bombings of the Japanese cities on Aug 6 and 9, 1945 lcilled 214,000 people,leadingto Japan`s surrender in World War IL-AFP