CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Japan's Mount Usu continues to spew smoke and ash, but today it seemed a lot calmer, and authorities who still say the worst is yet to come allowed some of the area's 16,000 evacuees a brief visit back home. Here's more from CNN's Tokyo bureau chief, Marina Kamimura.</s>MARINA KAMIMURA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For some evacuees, a chance to get back to their farms, albeit only briefly to take care of essential tasks such as feeding their livestock, the first time many were allowed back home since quakes began to shake northern Japan ahead of Usu's dramatic gushes of smoke, ashes, and rock late last week. Despite periodic outbursts, Sunday's spell of relative calm also allowed scientists a closer look at the steaming volcano, and damage incurred by Usu's first eruption in two decades that included rocks flung in the volcano's more violent moments. Experts warn potential for a major eruption remains.</s>HIROMU OKADA, SCIENTIST: We are still taking it very seriously</s>KAMIMURA: That worries people like Tatashitsu Imura (ph), a 51- year-old hotel employee. "If we go back to the hotel," he says, "no one can work there now, and no tourists will come for a while. The hotels are buried in ash. I have absolutely no idea what we are going to do." It's a problem businesses in the area are all too familiar with. While many depend on Usu to attract tourists to the hot springs it feeds, it took years for the local economy to recover the last time the volcano erupted. But this time, with some of the eruptions dangerously close to one of the area's most famous resorts, many are just hoping that there will be something left for them to go back to. Marina Kamimura, CNN, Tokyo. Search CNN.com CNNSI.com CNNmoney.com The Web
Evacuees Make Brief Visit to Their Homes in Wake of Japan's Mount Usu Eruption