Iwate fishing boat swept up in 2011 tsunami found 1,900 km away in Okinawa
(Mainichi Japan)
A fishing boat swept away from Iwate Prefecture by tsunami waves following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake was found in the nation's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, the Nakagusuku Coast Guard Office announced on Sept. 2.
According to the coast guard office based in the city of Okinawa, a crew member of a patrol vessel on duty found a fishing boat that had washed up on the beach in the town of Kin on Aug. 31. Though the boat did not have a name displayed on it, they traced the owner by its registration number.
The 0.8-ton boat, called "Seishomaru," was owned by Kiyofumi Sasaki, a 74-year-old fisherman in the northeastern Japan city of Kamaishi, and had drifted all the way to Kin some 1,900 kilometers away.
After receiving contact from the coast guard office, Sasaki seemed very surprised that the boat had traveled to Okinawa, when he himself has only traveled as far as to the city of Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, in western Japan.
On March 11, 2011, Sasaki had been processing seaweed he harvested from the Seishomaru at a hut nearby during peak season. Though he evacuated before the waves hit, the anchored boat was carried away by tsunami.
Sasaki bought a new fishing boat after the disaster and also named it Seishomaru. "Because of my old age, it's going to be difficult to go to the site (and retrieve the boat). I hope someone there can use it," he commented
(Japanese original by Masanori Nishijima, Kyushu News Department, and Takuhide Nakao, Regional News Department)