Local officials in Fukushima said they hoped the opening of the Haragamaobama beach would help change perceptions of the region, which has become inextricably linked with the 2011 disaster.

One of the reopened waterfronts is Haragamaobama beach in Fukushima prefecture, about 40 kilometres north of the crippled Daiichi nuclear plant.

The beach in the city of Soma is the closest to the plant of four beaches that the prefecture has reopened.

"I'm delighted, because life in Soma had always been associated with the sea before the disaster," Hiroyuki Ito, secretary general of the Soma Tourism Association, told AFP.