Some Japanese Won't Evacuate; Sendai's Airport Open Again
MALVEAUX: A sign of progress in Sendai, the town hardest hit by Japan's tsunami. The airport is now open for business. Planes are flying in humanitarian relief. Our CNN's Martin Savidge is there and filed this report.</s>MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you remember some of the most amazing images that came out in the first hours after the tsunami, one of them would have to be the airport in Sendai. It was just so amazing to see this massive airport overrun with water and debris. Now we're going back to see how it looks today.</s>SAVIDGE (voice-over): But, first, we have to avoid Japan's ongoing nuclear disaster.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the Fukushima reactor, the 25 mile restricted area. This is our airplane here.</s>SAVIDGE: Colonel Rob Tofe (ph) was aboard the first plane to land at Sendai after the tsunami.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think anything that you see on TV, well, Hollywood with their greatest special effects can't put into perspective the amount of destruction that was down there on the airfield the day that we arrived.</s>SAVIDGE: Sweeping in for landing ourselves, we see none of that.</s>SAVIDGE (on camera): You can probably see that, for the most part, behind us it looks great. It really does.</s>SAVIDGE (voice-over): The transition is amazing given what happened here the day of the disaster. But get away from the runway and you see the reminders, which a literal army of 240 U.S. airmen, soldiers and Marines, alongside Japanese civilians, frantically worked to clear. By just dumb luck, there were no large passenger planes here when the wave hit, but hundreds of smaller, mostly private aircraft weren't so lucky. They look as though they fell from the sky. Even ones in the hangers weren't spared.</s>SAVIDGE (on camera): This is the main entrance here at Sendai. It's like any normal American airport, only it's not so normal now.</s>SAVIDGE (voice-over): Sendai's an international hub. Think Logan Airport or Dulles. Japanese officials had written the place off.</s>SAVIDGE (on camera): Did you think it would be able to be reopened?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be honest, the answer is no.</s>SAVIDGE (voice-over): Bt it is open. It now serves as a center for humanitarian aid distribution. And guiding those planes for the same roofs on which so many sought shelter, now stand American Air Force air traffic controllers, who saw a tragedy and were able to help.</s>MASTER SGT. MICHAEL CHARVAT, U.S. AIR FORCE COMBAT CONTROLLER: You feel kind of sad. Then you know you're here for a job and hopefully you can bring some relief to the Japanese people.</s>SAVIDGE: Once an iconic image of a disaster, Sendai Airport has now been transformed into an early sign of hope. Martin Savidge, CNN, Sendai, Japan.</s>MALVEAUX: CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Randi Kaye, in for Ali Velshi. Hey, Randi.