TOKYO - Keeping the meltdown-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in northeastern Japan in stable condition requires a cast of thousands. Increasingly the plant's operator is struggling to find enough workers, a trend that many expect to worsen and hamper progress in the decades-long effort to safely decommission it.

Farmers have resumed planting rice for market only 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a local official said Wednesday. It was the first time since the March 2011 earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster that farmers have gone inside the former 20-kilometre "no-go" zone around the doomed plant to sow rice intended for sale. The zone has been redefined to let people access areas where the levels of radiation from the plant have been relatively low. Tens of thousands of people remain unable to return to their homes.

The House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday to enable those affected by the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi complex to file suits seeking damages from its operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. even after the three-year statute of limitations on doing so runs out. The bill will be enacted during the current Diet session following approval by the House of Councillors.

A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the northern coast of Japan's main Honshu island on Saturday, seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of damage. The quake hit at 2:48 pm (0548 GMT) in the Pacific some 50 kilometres (31 miles) from Namie town near the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi plant, the United States Geological Survey said. Japan's meteorological agency estimated it as 5.9 magnitude at a depth of 50 kilometres.