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Tokyo Big Sight to House Quake, Nuclear Evacuees

The metropolis of Tokyo announced on Monday that the Tokyo Big Sight and Tokyo International Forum event complexes will house evacuees from the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) disaster and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant accident. Tokyo Big Sight will begin accepting up to 3,000 evacuees at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 22. The Tokyo International Forum can accept up to 1,000 evacuees until the middle of April.

Tokyo has already been housing evacuees at the Tokyo Budōkan and Ajinomoto Stadium. Ajinomoto Stadium extended the time that evacuees can stay at its facilities from the end of March until the middle of April. Altogether, the various facilities in the metropolis can house up to 10,000 evacuees.

Tokyo Big Sight hosts several anime-, manga-, and game-related events, such as Comic Market, Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF), Tokyo Toy Show, and Hakurei Jinja Reitaisai. The TAF organizers announced the cancellation of this year's event this month. The organizers of Hakurei Jinja Reitaisai 8, the dōjin convention centering around the Touhou Project game series, have rescheduled the event from March 13 to May 8. Another Touhou Project dōjin event, Dai-9-shuu Touhousai 4, was originally going to be held in Kitakyūshū City on May 8 until it was delayed by the disaster.

Thanks to Joseph Tsai for the news tip.

Sources: Sports Nippon, Nikkei, TV Asahi