The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised the group's extraordinary efforts "to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons" and "to remind the world of the pressing need for nuclear disarmament".

It said: "This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the peace prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

"These historical witnesses have helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons."

In awarding the prestigious accolade to the group, committee chairman Jorgen Watne Frydnes said it wished "to honour all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace".

"Never did I dream this could happen," Toshiyuki Mimaki, head of Nihon Hidankyo, told reporters at a news conference in Hiroshima on Friday with tears in his eyes.

He was three years old and playing in front of his family home on the morning of 6 August 1945 when he saw a flash in the sky.

Mr Mimaki said the group's win would give a major boost to its efforts to demonstrate to the world "the abolition of nuclear weapons can be achieved".

"Nuclear weapons should absolutely be abolished," he said.

Next year will mark 80 years since the atomic bombings by the United States of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 during World War Two.

Without naming specific countries, Mr Frydnes warned today's nuclear weapons have far greater destructive power, and could kill millions of people.

"A nuclear war could destroy our civilisation," he said.

It is not the first time efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons have been honoured by the committee.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the prize in 2017 - and in 1995, Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs were awarded the prestigious accolade for "their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms."

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Last year, the award went to Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned Iranian women's rights activist.

Other previous winners of the award include South Africa's anti-apartheid champion Nelson Mandela, former US president Barack Obama for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy, and Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai for her fight for the right of girls to receive an education.

The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".

The peace prize is the fifth Nobel awarded this week, after literature, chemistry, physics and medicine.

Earlier this week, British computer scientist Sir Demis Hassabis was one of three winners of the Nobel Prize for chemistry for breakthroughs in predicting the structure of proteins and creating entirely new ones.

Sir Demis, who is the chief executive and co-founder of London-based artificial intelligence start-up Google DeepMind, received the honour alongside John Jumper, a senior research scientist at the company, and David Baker, of the University of Washington.