Louvre to send artworks to Japan's Fukushima

France's Louvre museum plans to send more than 20 artworks to Japan, including Fukushima prefecture, near the stricken nuclear plant, in order to show solidarity with the disaster-hit country. The exhibition will run from April 20 to September 17 in Japan's Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, said Jean-Luc Martinez, director of the department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities at the Louvre. The artworks -- 23 paintings, sculptures, drawings and other works from different eras and civilizations -- will arrive July 28 at the Fukushima prefecture arts museum. "Neither the works nor staff from the Louvre who will accompany them on a voluntary basis will be endangered," said Martinez, adding that the level of radioactivity was no higher than in a Paris museum. The show was organised as a gesture of solidarity with the Japanese, after last year's massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the northeast of Japan, sparking the Fukushima nuclear disaster.