Visitors flock to plant despite risk

An unexpected heavy snow blanketed Fukushima on Saturday and Sunday, providing a calm on city streets that had been swarming with media.

"It is much colder today than a year ago," a local prefectural media affairs official told China Daily. He said it was sunny on the morning of March 11, 2011, when the earthquake and tsunami struck.

The 20 km "no-go zone" around the plant established by the Japanese government has become a hot topic among visitors to Fukushima.

Despite concerns over radiation, reporters and tourists continue to visit the checkpoints surrounding the plant. Police officers and volunteers guard the entrances.

"So you are with the press, right?" a policeman with the Osaka police department asked me.

As we chatted, a bus carrying employees from the plant drove by. They were dressed in white protective uniforms.

TEPCO, the owner of the plant, signed a contract with J-Village, an adjacent stadium near to the "no-go" zone, to provide lodging and catering for employees who continued to commute to the plant after the accident.

The area around the stadium was calm. Employees wearing green uniforms carried processed food into the guarded zone. Visitors were restricted from entering the inner section of the residential area.

Stadium personnel and TEPCO officials closely monitored visitors who brought cameras to the area. When they saw one of our photographers secretly filming, they asked us to stop.