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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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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A volleyball and soccer ball that washed ashore on an Alaskan island may be the first pieces of debris to arrive in the United States from last year's tsunami in Japan.

The sports balls were spotted by radar technician David Baxter on treeless, windswept Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska, Doug Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle said in an agency blog post.

Baxter’s wife translated writing on the soccer ball and traced it back to a Japanese school in an area hit by the tsunami, Helton said.

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He told the Anchorage Daily News the balls were the first tsunami debris retrieved in Alaska.

 

"There have been other items that were suspected, but this is the first one that we're aware of that has the credentials that may make it possible to positively identify it."

Helton, in the NOAA post, said the agency, the State Department and the Japanese Embassy and its Seattle consulate are working to confirm details and set up the return of other debris that comes ashore.

A 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. Three thousand people are still unaccounted for. The tsunami triggered a crisis at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee in the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

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 ended sank the vessel April 5.

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 shores will be contaminated by radiation.

This article contains reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

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TOKYO – On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard sank a wayward Japanese fishing vessel off the coast of Alaska that had floated across the Pacific after being ripped from its moorings by the huge tsunami that struck on March 11 last year.

But could more Japanese flotsam and jetsam reach U.S. shores?

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Since last year, the Japanese government has been tracking and posting on a website detailed information of debris sightings collected from ships in the Pacific Ocean.

Reports of capsized boats peaked in July with 17 cases, dwindling to two found in November. There were no sightings for the months of December and January.

'Ghost ship' sinks to bottom of Gulf of Alaska after Coast Guard fires at it

According to the calculations by Japan's Cabinet Secretariat for Ocean Policy, as much as 5 million tons of debris, mostly damaged homes, were sucked into the sea by the tsunami. It is calculated that up to 70 percent of the material was concrete, which quickly sunk to the bottom of the ocean. But the remaining 30 percent may still be floating in the Pacific.

"Even though most nations have expressed their understanding that the debris was caused by an uncontrollable natural disaster, it nonetheless came from our country and we will do our utmost to fulfill our responsibilities" said Tetsuyuki Tamura, an official at the Ocean Policy department, adding that the most important task will be the sharing of information, particularly with the United States and Canada.

As for the effects of the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear complex, the Japanese government said the risk of radiation in the ocean is low, citing the fact that most of the wreckage was pulled into the sea 24 hours before the troubles at the plant. As for any subsequent radiation particles washed into the sea, it would have been very little in relation to the huge amounts of water in the ocean.

More photos of the 'ghost ship'

In February of this year, Japanese experts were dispatched to Hawaii to meet with their counterparts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for further exchange of information.

As a result, sometime this month, Japan is expected to post a computer simulation of the debris traveling across the Pacific to help gauge its route and the speed. 
 

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