A group of Japanese who used to live in North Korea toured Chongjin in the country's northeast Tuesday, with some recalling their childhoods in the port city as they visited for the first time in 68 years.

Eleven members of Kita Izoku Renraku Kai, a group seeking to retrieve the ashes of relatives who died in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula around the end of World War II, visited a railway station and saw the city from a mountain scenery viewing spot.

Takashi Fukushima, 78, from Kumamoto Prefecture, who moved to the city known as a ferrous-metal producing center with his family in 1942 when he was 8, said that while buildings in the city have greatly changed, natural landmarks remain almost intact.