There is nothing remarkable about the Nissan minibus that pulls up in the tsunami-wrecked port of Onahama, Fukushima Prefecture. Nothing, that is, except its 21 passengers, who have come to be seen as heroes around the world.
Three groups of seven men alight from the vehicle, many sporting gray hooded sweat shirts and coffee-brown tracksuit trousers, their unshaven faces looking unnaturally pallid in the late afternoon sun.
These men have seen little sunlight in recent weeks, spending long hours inside the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, where they work in darkness and fear battling to contain its ruined reactors.