60 years on, memories of U.S. air raid still linger.

Tokyo on Thursday marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S. air raid on the capital that left an estimated 100,000 people dead.

Survivors offered individual prayers, while memorial services and rallies for peace were held across the city.

The raid, five months before Japan's surrender in World War II, started early on March 10, 1945.

In just two and a half hours, about 300 U.S. B-29 bombers dropped 1,700 tons of incendiary bombs, targeting an area near the Sumidagawa river that today includes Sumida, Koto and Taito wards.

The densely populated area, jam-packed with wooden homes, became engulfed in a sea of fire. The flames spread quickly, fanned by a northwesterly wind, which triggered pandemonium as people tried to escape.

Many of the victims were women and children who perished in schoolyards and in the supposed safety of swimming pools or riverbanks as the firestorms took hold.

At the time, the Metropolitan Police Department calculated that 83,793 people died, 40,918 were injured and 268,358 homes destroyed.

Today, however, historians and officials estimate the death toll at around 100,000.

The air raid is sometimes compared to the Allied bombing of Dresden, Germany, in February the same year. That raid wiped out the city, killing many civilians.(IHT/Asahi: March 11,2005)