First tourists to visit Fukushima

The place where the Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred is about to become a new and bizarre tourist attraction as more and more people are crowding in order to visit the radioactive area. As it already happened with the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl when it was assaulted by tourists 25 years after the nuclear explosion on the nuclear power station, the Daiichi Fukushima disaster now attracts thousands of visitors, according to the Mirror.

Although the Chernobyl explosion took place 30 years ago, Fukushima nuclear accident occurred in 2011 due to the earthquake in the northeast aria of the country, followed by a tsunami of large proportions.

On April 2, 2014 it published a report into the Fukushima disaster that concluded the following: "The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants."

Despite the obvious risks of visiting this area, a number of companies organize trips to the affected zone. Hiroshi Miura, head of a company called NPO Nomado has already started to work as a tour guide for people visiting his hometown of Minamisoma, located 25 kilometers from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

“The biggest issue we face in Aizu is the perception gap the public has with the disaster,” says Ludovic Laine, a hotel consultant with the firm Atelier LaPaz, hired by Hotelli Aalto to develop ways to assuage the public’s fears of radiation. “The Aizu region, while technically part of Fukushima Prefecture, is extremely far away from the reactor,” Laine says. “The radiation levels here are lower than most major cities around the world, yet people are skeptical of coming here.”

Completely untouched from March 2011 Fukushima city was evacuated soon after Japan's eastern coast was devastated by a massive earthquake, followed by a huge tsunami that hit the nuclear plant.