A fishing boat from Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, that was washed into the Pacific Ocean by the March 2011 tsunami has been found on the other side of the archipelago, the Japan Coast Guard said.
The 5.6-meter-long vessel was found drifting off the coast of Fukui in the Sea of Japan on Saturday and was confirmed by the coast guard as belonging to a Kesennuma resident, after it was towed to a port in Tsuruga.
The coast guard believes the boat was carried by ocean currents to the West Coast of the United States, and from there back around to the Philippines, before drifting into the Sea of Japan via the Korea Strait, which separates Kyushu from the Korean Peninsula.
The coast guard spotted the fishing boat in June near the Okinawa islands but lost sight of it amid bad weather.