Tourists a rare sight in Japan

Foreign tourists remain a rare sight more than a month after Japan suffered the most powerful earthquake in its history.

Tourists a rare sight in Japan

Foreign tourists remain a rare sight more than a month after Japan suffered the most powerful earthquake in its history. April should be peak tourist season for Tokyo, famous for the spectacular blossoming of its cherry trees, which signals the start of spring. But in Asakusa, one of the capital's oldest districts and home to the Senso-ji temple, a major tourist draw, there are no foreign faces to be seen.

Looking to the future: Soldiers clear the debris left by the March 11
earthquake from the tracks. Pic/AFP

"Before the earthquake, Asakusa was quite touristy and very well-known to foreigners," said rickshaw driver Yoshiaki Suzuki. "But since the quake, and the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant, you no longer see them." Foreign governments urged their citizens to stay away, some even chartering planes to fly people out of Tokyo as the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant threatened to spiral out of control.

Around 5,60,000 hotel reservations have been cancelled, according to government figures. "Foreigners think it is dangerous here, with the earthquake and the nuclear accident. Japan is safe. Tokyo is safe," said Uko Komatsuzaki, head of public relations for Tokyo's renowned Imperial Hotel. Japan's tour guides have been particularly badly hit by the crisis so much so that they have launched a YouTube campaign to try to convince foreign visitors to return.

Memorial
A memorial service was held in Minamisanriku, a Japanese fishing town obliterated by the tsunami. Officials said over 1,000 residents died or are listed as missing. One man who had lost 10 members of his family, said, "It is really something that it is very hard to cope with."