A Japanese fishing boat that washed across the Pacific following the 2011 tsunami has been confirmed as the first piece of debris to reach the coast of California, officials said Friday.
A car passes in front of tsunami debris piled up on the wharf in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, on January 15, 2012, nearly one year after the 2011 tsunami devastated the area. A Japanese fishing boat washed across the Pacific following the 2011 tsunami has been confirmed as the first piece of debris to reach the coast of California, officials said Friday.
The 20-foot (six-meter) skiff, found this month near the northern Californian coastal town of Crescent City, belonged to the Takata High School in the Japanese city of Rikuzentakata, in Iwate Prefecture.
Japan's consulate in San Francisco helped the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirm where the boat came from, after it was spotted washed up on a local beach.
The boat was covered in pelagic gooseneck barnacles. Experts at California's Humboldt State University also helped to identify it, said NOAA spokeswoman Keeley Belva.
The vessel is the 27th item of debris so far confirmed on the US West Coast, and the first in California. Other items have been found washed up in the states of Alaska, Washington and Oregon further up the coast.
Japan last month marked the second anniversary of the March 11, 2011 9.0-magnitude earthquake that sent a huge wall of water into its northeastern coast, killing some 19,000 people and triggering a nuclear calamity.