Plight of homeless in Fukushima cleanup

The night is cold here in Sendai, far to the north of Tokyo.

This station's the warmest place to sleep for people living rough.

It's also a fertile recruiting ground.

Brokers are selling homeless people like this to companies cleaning up radiation in Fukushima.

Shizuya Nishiyama's been sleeping rough for a year, and he's twice been sent to scrub down radioactive hotspots.

(SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) 57-YEAR-OLD HOMELESS MAN, SHIZUYA NISHIYAMA, SAYING:

"We're an easy target for recruiters. We turn up here with all our bags, wheeling them around and around the station and we're easy to spot. Then they say to us: 'Are you looking for work? Are you hungry?'"

Activists say homeless people are flocking here from across Japan to look for work in the tsunami-devastated north.

But the safer jobs are now in short-supply.

Yasuhiro Aoki is leader of this homeless support group.

Many workers are reaching their radiation limits, he says, so ther