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Noaa - Jiji Press / AFP - Getty Images
This soccer ball is believed to have drifted from Rikuzentakata, Japan, to Alaska following the March 2011 tsunami.
A Japanese teenager has identified himself as the owner of a soccer ball that washed up on an Alaska beach last week – the first traceable debris to arrive in the United States from last year's tsunami.
Misaki Murakami, who comes from the city of Rikuzentakata, where more than 3,000 homes were destroyed, came forward on Sunday after reading news reports about the find.
Marker pen writing on the soccer ball identified the 16-year-old and the name of his school.
The soccer ball and a volleyball were discovered by David Baxter, a technician working at a radar station on remote Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska, Doug Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote ina blog post last week.
Japan’s Kyodo news agency said Murakami was at home at the time of the tsunami disaster in March 2011 but managed to escape the waves by running to higher ground with his pet dog.
Kyodo via Reuters
Misaki Murakami, 16, says he is the owner of a soccer ball that was found on the shore of a remote Alaska island.
His family lost everything, including their home, and are currently living in temporary housing provided by the local government.
Ghost ship sinks to bottom of Gulf of Alaska
Murakami told the news agency Sunday that he had been searching for his family's belongings but that until the ball was found he had had no luck.
Prized possession
The ball was a gift from his former homeroom teacher and his 13 classmates when he had to change schools in the same area seven years ago.
He said it was a prized possession, which he always kept hanging in a net next to his bed.
Kyodo News via AP
David and Yumi Baxter hold the soccer ball and a volleyball at their home in Alaska.
Doug Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that there wasn't enough information on the volleyball for Japanese officials to locate its possible owner.
Murakami spoke with Baxter on the phone to thank him for finding his treasured ball.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan's northeast coast on March 11, 2011, triggered a 75-foot wall of water that flattened waterfront towns, killing 16,000. About 3,000 people are still unaccounted for. The tsunami triggered a crisis at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee in the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.
An earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear meltdown -- residents of Japan's northeast coast suffered through three intertwined disasters after a massive 9.0 magnitude temblor struck off the coast on March 11, 2011.
U.S. authorities were immediately aware that the clockwise circulation of the Pacific's northern waters would deliver some remnants of that destruction to American shores.
A Japanese ghost ship, Ryou-Un Maru, turned up earlier in the Gulf of Alaska off Southeast Alaska after a 4,500-mile journey. The U.S. Coast Guard sank the vessel April 5.
Tracking the debris from the Japan tsunami can be tricky, as it moves across the Pacific via ocean currents and winds. NBC's Miguel Almaguer reports.
In January, a half-dozen large buoys suspected to be from Japanese oyster farms appeared at the top of Alaska's panhandle and may be among the first tsunami debris.
State health and environmental officials have said there's little need to be worried that debris landing on Alaska's shores will be contaminated by radiation.
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Leave a Comment:
WILSON I'm Sorry!!!!....
I wish a GPS had been attached to the soccer ball-I would love to see a map of its travels across the sea!
The Japanese are responsible for the garbage. Its there job to clean it up.
hey Scientist1.... Its there job to clean it up ?? (well, besides not being kind it might be useful if you could learn the difference between There, Their, and They're. Oh, and how about It's (the contraction of It + is?
Then you might have a little more credibility even if you're still lacking in compassion.
Good story. Poorly written. It's good to see someone get something back from the nightmare. He needs to keep that ball at his side at all times. He will always come back from wherever he goes.
Wait until Godzira attacks Fairbanks.
so it took one year to get to alaska, wow
Looks like Wilson guided the boy's soccer ball to land!
Tell Sarah Palin to go out on her porch ! I bet she can see this from there too !
That's a fine story and all...but why not proofread it?? Jeez.
It's interesting these balls are washed out to sea in a tsunami after an earthquake and floats in a salt fill ocean for a year and yet stay inflated and the writing is still on the ball ...
My grand-daughter cant keep air in a soccer ball for 3 days much less not wear her name off of it ....
Made in Japan soccer balls = better quality than Made in China soccer balls we buy at Wal-Mart! :D
Tsunami debris in Alaska & REPUBLICAN DEBRIS IN CONGRESS! Yuk, yuk!
The dems are the Tsunami
I can understand that so many people lost so much and it is mother nature at her worst. but thinking about all the garbage coming this way with billions and billions of gallons of waste from the nuclear plant does that not seem scarey to anyone.
It is very sad the loss that those poor people went thru so much pain. Mother nature at her worst. What I also see is all of that distruction coming this way houses, cars, and lord knows what else, and billions and billoins of gallons of nuclear waste.they say its nothing to worrry about but common sence tells me we should be worried nuclear waste does not just go away EVER !
I learned about that clockwise Pacific current in college. Many years ago, Japanese fishing boats caught in storms were swept away in that current and the men became stranded- in Alaska. I always thought that Eskimos in cartoons looked Asian.
It floated across the entire Pacific and stayed inflated?
That's damn well made ball.
If no one claim the volleyball, the Japanese government should put it in a memorial for the tsunami victims. This is a good story and a heart-warming end.