TRAVEL

More than 500 vehicles were stranded on a section of National Highway Route 279 in Yokohama, Aomori Prefecture, on Wednesday night after a large truck and a bus skidded and became stuck on the road due to a blizzard, according to police. Early Thursday, Aomori Gov. Shingo Mimura asked the head of the Marine Self-Defense Force's Ominato District Headquarters to send a disaster relief team to the town. According to the Aomori prefectural government, 250 drivers caught in the gridlock abandoned their vehicles and spent the night at eight public facilities nearby, including an assembly hall and a primary school, opened as temporary shelters by the Yokohama town government and the neighboring city of Mutsu. (Yomiuri)

This winter's heavier snowfall has seen more than 500 people across seven prefectures die or become injured in snow-related accidents, including cases in which they had been trying to remove snow, it has been learned. People are trying to remove snow themselves using shovels and other tools because of delays in municipal-led snow removal. The delays have been caused by a shortage of dump trucks--many of which are being used in areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake for reconstruction work--to transport snow. According to data compiled by the Akita, Aomori, Ishikawa, Nagano, Niigata, Toyama and Yamagata prefectural governments, the death toll from such snow-related accidents had reached 31 as of Wednesday, while 479 people had sustained injuries. In Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture, 10 workers fell at a construction site while clearing snow on Thursday, six of them sustaining injuries. (Yomiuri)

The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has affected the exports of farm and marine products from eastern Japan. According to the estimates of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, 44 countries and territories either ban the import of food items produced in Japan, or demand that they be inspected when imported, even though they are regarded safe and marketed domestically. While the government had aimed to reach 1 trillion yen of agricultural and marine exports, this goal has been hampered by regulations that could be based on overblown fears. On Thursday, high-grade apples in the first auction of the year at a fruit and vegetable market in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, sold at prices about 1.6 times higher than the previous year, partly due to short supply. Farmers and others were greatly relieved by the prices of almost all varieties, which were higher than those of last year. (Yomiuri)

A strong wintry pressure pattern caused heavy snowfall Thursday on the Sea of Japan coast, especially in the Hokuriku region. The Meteorological Agency issued advisories for traffic disruptions and possible avalanches. Some areas in Aomori, Niigata and Tottori prefectures had more than 2 meters of snow as of 9 a.m., 1.5 to 3.3 times the average. Other mountainous regions in eastern and central Japan recorded more than 50 cm of snow in the 24 hours through Thursday morning. (Japan Times)

A bluefin tuna has been sold for three quarters of a million dollars in Tokyo - a price almost double last year's record sale. The bluefin tuna, prized for making the finest sushi, fetched 56.49m yen ($736,000) at Tsukiji fish market's first auction of the year. The winning bidder was Kiyoshi Kimura, owner of a sushi restaurant chain. Globally, there is great concern over the species and fishing quotas. The 269kg (593lb) tuna also set a record for price by weight, market official Yutaka Hasegawa said. The total price translates to 210,000 yen ($2,737) per kilogram. The tuna was caught off Oma, in Aomori prefecture, north of the coast that was struck by the devastating tsunami last year. (BBC)

The arrest earlier this month of a former Yamaguchi-gumi member for investment fraud is setting off shock waves inside the entertainment industry, reports Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 23). Hirooka Kikutsugi, 46, was taken into custody for attempting to defraud investors out of roughly 300 million yen in an investment scheme related to a water supply and mining venture. Officers from nine municipalities, including Osaka and Aomori, made 32 arrests in total. Kikutsugi was deemed the mastermind of the plan. (Tokyo Reporter)

Major changes are slated for toll roads through some of Japan's most booming cities and areas directly affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The temporary changes will impact people traveling in and around Tokyo, Osaka, and the northern region of Tohoku, which was affected by the March 11 disaster, Japanese government and expressway officials said this week. From Thursday through March 31, vehicles equipped with the Electric Toll Collection system will not be charged on expressways in the Tohoku region - specifically between Aomori Prefecture and Mito in Ibaragi Prefecture, which is about 64 miles north of Tokyo. This move is being made to ease access for those assisting in recovery and reconstruction efforts and to boost tourism, according to officials from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. (Stars & Stripes)

Oriental white storks, a special protected species in Japan that once vanished from the wild in the 1970s, are making a gradual comeback, with some 1,000 sightings of the birds from Aomori to Kagoshima prefectures over the past six years. The presence of the birds is a sign that organic farming is functioning, as they feed on frogs and loaches that coexist with other living creatures in the rice paddies of organic farms. As such, they have been seen as "environmental barometers," offering hope to organic farmers, according to those familiar with the birds. (Mainichi)

An anonymous donor left 40 million yen in cash in a public toilet at the Hachinohe municipal government office in Aomori Prefecture with a note asking that the money be given to four prefectures affected by the March 11 disaster, according to city officials. Bundles of 10,000 yen bills in a paper bag were found in a tote bag in the toilet. A letter in a paper bag containing the cash said the donor wanted to donate 10 million yen each to Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, according to the municipal office. The donor signed the letter, "Tohokujin," meaning a person from the Tohoku region. (Yomiuri)

Of the 88 buildings designated as tsunami shelters in coastal areas of Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Chiba prefectures, at least 50 were effective in saving local residents' lives on March 11, according to research by The Yomiuri Shimbun. In Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, more than 2,500 people saved themselves by running into designated shelters. However, some local government officials who sought refuge in a firefighting station that was a designated shelter died or went missing as the tsunami--which exceeded all predictions in terms of scale--rose higher than the station's roof. At another shelter, people ran out of food after being stranded there for days. (Yomiuri)

Japan will soon receive its first shipment of highly radioactive waste amid the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant triple-meltdown crisis that started in March, and at a time when the storage of such dangerous substances is increasingly problematic. The freighter Pacific Grebe set sail from Britain on Aug. 3 with more than 30 tons of radioactive waste on board. The cargo, Japanese spent fuel reprocessed in the U.K., is returning sealed in 76 stainless steel canisters packed into 130-ton containers. It is set to arrive early next month at Mutsu-Ogawara port in Aomori Prefecture for delivery to Japan Nuclear Fuel's nearby Rokkasho storage site. (Japan Times)

For the northern prefectures of Japan, summer festivals take on a special meaning. This year, with the Great East Japan Earthquake and the lingering effects of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant disaster, the summer festivals take on an even more symbolic meaning. The schedule for the first week of August is filled with major events in cities from Fukushima Prefecture in the south to northern Aomori Prefecture. (Asahi)

Chubu Electric Power Co. revealed Thursday it has been unable to remove a spent fuel rod that was damaged in an accident 17 years ago from its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. Spent fuel is normally sent to the reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, or elsewhere, but the damaged rod remains in a special container inside the fuel pool of the plant's decommissioned No. 1 reactor, it said. (Japan Times)

An Aomori Nebuta float made of illuminated papier-mache will parade through Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, in September to attempt to reinvigorate the city, which was hit hard by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Sakuryu Chiba, a Nebuta float maker in Aomori, devised the project after building a float modeled after a kitamaebune ship replica that was built by a shipwright in Ofunato. Kitamaebune were freighters that plied a route that stretched from Osaka through the Seto Inland Sea and the Kanmon Straits to ports in the Hokuriku region on the Sea of Japan, and later to Hokkaido during the Edo period (1603-1867) and the Meiji era (1868-1912). (Yomiuri)

More than 2.4 billion yen in bills and coins soiled or damaged by the March 11 tsunami has been brought to Bank of Japan branches in the hard-hit Tohoku region to be replaced, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. This figure is triple the 800 million yen exchanged for undamaged currency in the six months after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake--an indication of the sheer extent of the damage wrought by the March 11 disaster. As of last Tuesday, 320,000 damaged banknotes and 930,000 coins had been brought to Bank of Japan branches in Sendai, Fukushima, Aomori and Akita, and a temporary branch set up in Morioka. (Yomiuri)

Despite struggling with recovery and reconstruction efforts following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the Tohoku region will go ahead with its summer festival program this year. Some of the festivals will be downscaled due to the impact of the March 11 disaster, organizers said, but added they want to attract as many tourists as possible to the region also affected by the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Tohoku's three big summer festivals--the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri, Akita Kanto Matsuri and Sendai Tanabata Matsuri--will go ahead as per usual years. (Yomiuri)