A crippled cargo plane which struck a low-income apartment block in 1993 revealed the previously unknown scale of illegal aliens in the Netherlands. Frustrated in figuring out how many died in 77 destroyed apartments, the authorities offered a residence permit to any illegals living there who would provide notification that they were still alive. About 2,000 applied. It is now estimated that up to 1% of the Netherlands' 5 million people are illegal aliens. At the same time, across a broad front the tolerance for illegal aliens declined markedly.
In 1992, Japan had almost 300,000 foreigners living illegally, a rise of about 35% over 1991. Thais lead, followed by South Koreans, Malaysians, Filipinos and Iranians. Besides day labourer in dirty ([kitanai]), hard ([kitsui]) or unsafe ([kiken]) work, women are lured to work in the sex trade. In the boom period of the 1980s, foreign worker were tolerated and even encouraged; in the 1990s, they are blamed for many ills, some real, some imagined and some for which they are merely convenient scapegoats.