A communications system involving about 2,500 tablet computers is reconnecting village residents dispersed by the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

Some 6,100 residents of Iitate, who were scattered after the nuclear crisis erupted at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, can now talk face-to-face online and get news and videos of their hometown via tablet PCs.

Iitate is the first crisis-hit municipality to use the devices, which were allocated to all households to help them keep in touch.

At a ceremony in the city of Fukushima to launch the system earlier this month, Iitate Mayor Norio Kanno used his tablet to call Joji Sato, who is living at a temporary facility in another city in the prefecture.

Sato, the 75-year-old head of the Iitate villagers' association, told the mayor he was doing well and said he hoped to master the tablet device in a couple of weeks.