Emperor's Family to Tour Northeast Japan 15 Years On

Tokyo, Feb. 25 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and their daughter, Princess Aiko, will visit three northeastern prefectures beginning next month that were hardest hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami to mark 15 years since the disaster, the Imperial Household Agency said Wednesday.

The family will visit Iwate and Miyagi on March 25-26 and Fukushima on April 6-7 to inspect progress made in reconstruction efforts, planning to meet with people in areas hit by the disaster. It will be Princess Aiko's first visit to the three prefectures.

According to the agency, they will fly to Iwate on March 25 and lay flowers at "Chinkon no Mori," a memorial facility in the town of Otsuchi. They will also visit the city of Ofunato to meet with people affected by the 2011 disaster and a forest fire that broke out in February last year.

The following day, the family will move to Miyagi and visit a disaster memorial facility in the town of Minamisanriku. In the city of Ishinomaki, they will offer flowers at Ishinomaki Minamihama Tsunami Memorial Park and speak with disaster victims, before returning to Tokyo that evening.

On April 6, they will travel by Shinkansen bullet train to Fukushima to visit the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in the town of Futaba, home to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s tsunami-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. They will lay flowers and meet disaster victims there.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]