Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

The Tokyo metropolitan government will open a swimming beach at Kasai Rinkai Park (葛西臨海公園) this weekend – for the first time in 50 years – as a pilot program to see if there is demand for a beach in central Tokyo, a megalopolis of nearly 32 million people.

Since the 1960s, there had been a significant deterioration of water quality along the beaches on Tokyo’s Pacific Ocean coastline and all the beaches have closed. But with the reclamation projects in the Tokyo Bay waterfront areas nearly completed, and a demand to beautify the coastal area to allow more human activities, a local group has organized a number of swimming events and will oversee a 150-meter wide open water swimming zone with lifeguards and stingray nets protecting the area.

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