Reporters have been allowed inside the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan for the first time since it was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami in March.
The journalists toured the plant wearing full protective clothing.
A reporter from the Associated Press described seeing “twisted and overturned trucks, crumbling reactor buildings and piles of rubble virtually untouched since the wave struck”.
This tour was designed to show that the situation at the plant is gradually becoming more stable.
The reporters arrived at Fukushima on Friday and were shown a nearby football-training complex which is now being used as a base for the clean-up operation.
The media tour was accompanied by the head of the Fukushima plant, Masao Yoshida, who described the dire conditions there following the tsunami.
“In the first week immediately after the accident I thought a few times, I’m going to die,” he said.
However, he suggested that the situation there was now much better.
“But it’s still very tough conditions for the recovery workers inside the complex,” he added.
The government minister in charge of the clean-up operation, Goshi Hosono, was also there and made a speech to workers at the plant praising them for the progress being made.
“Every time I come back, I feel conditions have improved. This is due to your hard work,” he said.
The authorities are hoping to complete a “cold shutdown” of the damaged reactors by the end of the year. But it could take decades to completely decommission the plant.
Of the six reactors at Fukushima, four were badly damaged by the tsunami.
the reactor buildings.