The Olympic flame arrived Friday in Japan, where the planned festive welcome was reduced to its simplest expression due to the coronavirus pandemic, which casts doubt on the very holding of the Tokyo Games this summer.
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The flame landed on the Matsushima air base in Miyagi prefecture in the northeast of the country, said an AFP journalist. The region was specially chosen to symbolize the reconstruction of the areas devastated by the gigantic tsunami of March 11, 2011, followed by the Fukushima nuclear accident.