Japanese Boat Wreck Leaves 11 Dead So Far

On Monday, the Japanese Coast Guard and the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) announced that the death toll from Kazu One, a tourist boat that went missing over the weekend in northern Japan, increased to 11 after a 3-year-old girl was confirmed dead.

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The 19-ton tour boat was carrying 26 people when it went missing off the Shiretoko Peninsula in the Hokkaido prefecture on Saturday after making a distress call saying it was taking on water in rough seas. Contact with the boat was lost at around 1:15 p.m. local time Saturday.

Among those aboard the vessel, seven men and three women were confirmed dead the next day, and two children aboard the vessel were also pulled from the waters. The 3-year-old girl, the most recent of the victims, was found to be on Sunday night in waters about 14 km east of a lighthouse near the tip of Shiretoko Peninsula.

The child's body likely drifted along with the wind and the tide, officials in Shari, from where the boat departed, were quoted as saying. The girl's parents remained missing. The SDF said 24 passengers and crew were all believed to be wearing life jackets when the boat embarked, although the girl was not wearing one when she was found.

Nine out of 10 confirmed dead were found in the water or on nearby rocks around 10 km from where the boat issued its first rescue call. The search area has since been expanded beyond there and local fishing vessels have also joined the search.

As it is likely that the boat may have sunk in the rough waters, searchers are using sonar equipment to try and locate the vessel. The boat had a history of colliding with a floating object in May last year, when three passengers were injured.

In June, the Transport ministry said it ran aground in shallow waters shortly after leaving port. Noriyuki Toyoda, the 54-year-old captain, was refereed to prosecutors over the second incident.