MARK COLVIN: The Japanese Government will tonight make it illegal for anyone to go within 20 kilometres of the Fukushima nuclear plant.
The strengthening of the exclusion zone underlines once again that, almost six weeks on from the tsunami, the radiation threat remains.
The nuclear disaster's taken a heavy toll on Japan's economy too.
And few sectors have suffered as much as the fishing industry. Because the Japanese are changing their usually seafood-heavy diets.
Hayden Cooper travelled to Japan's east coast for this report.
HAYDEN COOPER: At his tiny fish stall on the outskirts of Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market - Kazuyo Yamamoto spruiks for customers...
HAYDEN COOPER: He and his family have been doing this for six decades, since the dark days after World War Two. But this he says, is the worst time of all.
"The number of customers has dropped dramatically. Before this I never had people asking if my tuna is fresh or frozen" he says. "Now they do, they want frozen fish, because it's from overseas, not fresh fish from Japanese waters."
A few doors down businesswoman Taeko Aoyama recounts a similar experience. She owns a chain of about 50 sushi stores all over Japan.
"I'm worried that wholesalers of the market may go bankrupt," she says. "The fish are absolutely safe but people are afraid that it's dangerous. If someone says the fish is dangerous, people run away and stop eating."
Stop eating they have. A couple of hundred kilometres east of Tokyo is the bustling fishing town of Choshi. Much of the radiation impact on fish is found further north near Fukushima but here too the fisherman are bearing the brunt of the customer slow-down in Tokyo.
HAYDEN COOPER: With her husband and their colleagues, Taeko Aoyama is sorting through their morning catch red snapper, the bright pink fish for which this region is famous.
"My biggest worry," she says "is the sales of red snapper and the damage from the tsunami. Life is completely different after the quake. The market price dropped dramatically, only now is it slowly recovering."
HAYDEN COOPER: Nearby cranes pick up bunches of tuna by the tails and transfer them from ships onto the dock. Fisherman set to work cleaning them, while others punch their weight and size into computers,
HAYDEN COOPER: It's a frenetic scene but the head of the local fishing authority Seichi Kimura says it's much quieter than usual.
"I've been working here for 46 years," he says "and I've never seen anything like it."
To rebuild confidence among consumers, every day he's conducting radiation tests on a whole range of different fish.
"The biggest threat now," Seichi Kimura says, "is damage from rumours. What I want to say out loud and tell people, is that here are the results of the testing, so there's nothing to worry about. Please eat."
Back in Tokyo that message is only just starting to hit home. The recovery is beginning and tourists are returning.
Shui Ishizaka is one who stayed through it all. He's from Sydney and in Taeko Aoyama's sushi restaurant; he's doing his bit.
SHUI ISHIZAKA: Yeah I'm here for just over a month and yeah of course, like all my family, my friends they're like all are you sure you wanna go? I mean, you can go another time when it's a bit safer but this was a trip that I'd been planning for a while now and it wasn't gonna stop me.
So, and I'm here and I'm having a great time. So, I mean, the fish comes from everywhere around Japan, so just because one place is affected, doesn't mean it affects the whole basin where they source their fish.
HAYDEN COOPER: The raspy voiced fishmongers of Japan can only hope there are more like him
HAYDEN COOPER: This is Hayden Cooper reporting from Tokyo for PM.
sources
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3198310.htm
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