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Tokyo. A Hawaiian theme park that for 45 years propped up the economy of a rural Japanese town was forced to close after the March 11 earthquake.

Structural damage from the magnitude-9.0 quake and concerns about radiation leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant 60 kilometers to the north closed the resort, a semi-roofed complex surrounded by rice fields and hot springs.

Now, almost a year later, the hula girls have returned.

The Spa Resort Hawaiians in Iwaki will open its indoor pools and host wedding parties and Hawaiian luaus in a new hotel beginning on Wednesday.

The spa, featured in the Japanese award-winning 2006 film “Hula Girls,” shows a community bouncing back from a catastrophe that left almost 20,000 dead or missing in the Tohoku region of northeast Japan and forced about 160,000 to evacuate areas within 30 kilometers of the plant. The disaster accelerated a trend toward shrinking and aging countryside populations as big cities grow.

“The spa’s return to business is a symbol of recovery in a sense that it can cheer up the local community and provide huge economic support,” said Hiroyasu Ishikawa, chief researcher at Mizuho Research Institute.

The resort in Fukushima prefecture contributed 1.7 trillion yen ($22 billion) to the region’s economy in the first 40 years after it opened, Ishikawa said. While not economically significant to the nation as a whole, Spa Hawaiians is a symbol of resilience in a pocket of the country that has been in decline for decades.

Iwaki was a coal-mining town until a shift to oil-fueled power generation led to mining closures in the 1960s. With few other options, the town council voted to transform Iwaki into a tourism destination by using natural hot springs to supply a spa, initially called the Joban Hawaiian Center, in 1966. The vacation spot, managed by Joban Kosan, now employees about 700 people.

Almost 2,800 villages across the country may be in danger of disappearing, according to a report released last March by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Sixteen percent of the villages reported that more than half their populations were aged 65 or older.

The number of people in Fukushima prefecture fell to 1.9 million as of Jan. 1 from 2.1 million in 1990.

A report released in July by the ministry showed that the number of towns and villages threatened with depopulation was 44.9 percent in 2010, up from 32.3 percent in 1972. In 1960, Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka accounted for 15 percent of Japan’s population.

As of 2010, more than half of the nation lived in those three cities, and the number of people in Tokyo rose to a record 13.2 million as of Jan. 1, according to census data.

A troupe of hula dancers went on a five-month nationwide tour after the quake to reassure the public that the city and resort were safe from radiation.

In the four months since the leisure complex opened partially in October, visitor numbers are down 60 percent from levels a year ago. But numbers will return to the pre-disaster level of 1.45 million a year by 2014, said Eisuke Suzuki, a spokesman for the resort.

“I have absolute faith that the grand opening of Spa Hawaiians will revitalize tourism in the surrounding areas and help the industry regain its role as a driver of the broader economy,” Kazuhiko Saito, president of Joban Kosan, said in an e-mail last week.

Bloomberg