A fishing boat that went missing during a powerful Japanese tsunami has been found 10 years later on a small Pacific island.
The small fishing vessel went missing from the city of Kesennuma in the prefecture of Miyagi in the north-eastern Japanese region of Tohoku following the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.
With a magnitude of 9.0, the undersea megathrust earthquake was the most powerful ever recorded in Japan and caused a tsunami with waves of up to 40.5 metres (133 feet) which killed over 10,000 people.
Almost 10 years after the tragedy, the fishing boat has been found off the coast of an island 404 miles south of Japan called Hachijo.
According to the newspaper The Mainichi, local fishermen checked the boat’s registration and were able to confirm that the vessel belonged to the fishing cooperative in Kesennuma.
The boat was covered in coral which sparked speculation about where it might have passed through.
The 5.5-metre (18- foot) boat, which also had fish and crabs swimming in puddles inside, was towed to the coast by the local authorities.
A local resident and ocean expert, who has not been named, told The Mainichi: “It’s possible that after the boat was swept away to an area near the US west coast, it moved to Southeast Asia on the North Equatorial Current, and then washed up here on the Kuroshio Current.”
Fishing boat adrift for nearly 10 years after 2011 tsunami in Tokyo 
Fishing boat adrift for nearly 10 years after 2011 tsunami in Tokyo
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Story By: Lisa-Maria Goertz, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
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