Japenese girls football fans Football returned Friday to the Japanese prefecture hardest-hit by last month\'s earthquake and tsunami, with Vegalta Sendai playing their first home J-League match since the disaster.
Their long-awaited re-appearance at the Yurtec Stadium came 50 days after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami devastated Miyagi prefecture and other areas along Japan\'s northeast coast.

Standing on the pitch before the game against Urawa Red Diamonds -- which finished in a 1-0 win for Sendai -- prefecture governor Yoshihiro Murai declared the contest \"the kickoff towards reconstruction\".
Fervent orange-clad home supporters filled two-thirds of the ground.

The catastrophe on March 11 claimed the lives of nearly 15,000 people, with more than 11,000 still missing.
\"We are still far from the point where we can start reconstruction,\" said Tsutomu Sato, 47, from Minamisanriku, one of the coastal communities wiped out by the tsunami.
\"Many sports events have been cancelled, including those for kids. But I think we can get the power to get back on our feet through events like this,\" said Sato, who wore the orange Sendai strip.
\"I really needed this to stand up again.\"
It was Sendai\'s second match after the J-League resumed last weekend, when they claimed a narrow victory over Kawasaki Frontale.