May 17 (NHK) - Following the lifting of the month-long state of emergency in Nagano Prefecture, central Japan, bus service to a resort area that serves as the gateway to Japan's Northern Alps resumed on Saturday.
Several hikers boarded the first bus to Kamikochi at a bus stop in Matsumoto City.
The bus will make 3 round trips per day, or one-fifth the normal number.
Another bus that operates from neighboring Gifu Prefecture continues to be suspended in a move to keep people from traveling across prefectural borders.
The bus operator is calling on passengers to use alcohol disinfectant that is placed in the vehicle.
A plastic sheet has been hung between the driver's seat and the passenger seats to prevent droplet infection.
In the Kamikochi area, a few inns reopened on Saturday.
Guests checked into a hot spring inn which had been closed since April 19th.
The prefectural government is calling on inns and hotels not to solicit customers from prefectures that are still under special alert.
But people from outside Nagano Prefecture may still come, which is why the inn is taking preventive measures such as halving the number of guests it accepts at any given time. The inn says it would be difficult to reject visitors who come from other prefectures.
