THE site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster is set to become a bizarre new tourist attraction, as people flock to visit the radioactive exclusion zone.

    Just as tourists visited Chernobyl 25 years after the explosion at the Soviet-era nuclear reactor, the Fukushima Daiichi disaster zone is now attracting thousands of visitors.

    But while Chernobyl happened more than 30 years ago, the Fukushima disaster was initiated by the tsunami following the Tōhoku earthquake in 2011.

    Despite the risks involved in visiting the site, a number of companies are organizing tours in the disaster area.

    Hiroshi Miura, head of a company called NPO Nomado, has already started working as a tour guide for people visiting his home city of Minamisoma, located 16 miles north of the Fukushima nuclear plant.

    The first project aimed at transforming the crippled area into a tourist attraction was presented to the Japanese authorities in 2012, only a year after the disaster.

    The idea was put forward by philosopher Hiroki Azuma, the author of the Chernobyl Dark Tourism Guide, who said people should be allowed to see the process of the Fukushima plant’s decontamination with their own eyes.

    He added that, by 2036, visitors should be able to approach the plant without the need to wear protective suits.

    But Japanese authorities dismissed the idea, saying the word “tourism” should never be applied to the catastrophe site.

    But companies are still pressing on with their controversial tour guides — and it’s a seriously lucrative enterprise.

    Miura told Sputnik News, “In October 2012 I established a non-commercial organization Nomada and continued my business by creating a ‘20 Kilometers Away From Fukushima-1’ tour.

    “By 2014, just by myself, I had over 5,000 clients. In 2015 other guides and volunteers started working with me, and over 10,000 people participated in our tours.”

    Lying completely untouched since March 2011, the city of Fukushima was evacuated suddenly after the east coast of Japan was devastated by a massive earthquake followed by a huge tsunami.

    Towns and villages housing hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated as a major nuclear event was declared and a 20-km no-go “red zone” was put into place.

    There have been no deaths linked to the radiation released during the accident, but the eventual number of cancer deaths is expected to be around 130 to 640 people.(SD-Agencies)