By IANS,
Tokyo : Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko Thursday visited a quake-hit city on their first trip to areas that were hit by last month’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.
The imperial couple met people at two emergency shelters in Asahi city in Chiba prefecture, where 13 people were killed in the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami.
The couple had earlier visited evacuees at shelters in Tokyo and neighbouring Saitama prefecture, Xinhua reported.
Starting next week, the emperor and the empress would visit Ibaraki, Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures on trips that will continue through May, according to the public broadcaster NHK.
Over 13,000 people were killed in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant, a disaster that has been equated to the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. Over 14,000 people are still missing, Japan’s National Police Agency said.