As the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster continues to cast a shadow over Japan, the National Police Agency (NPA) has listed 2,520 individuals as still missing. These people remain unaccounted for and cannot be officially added to the death toll until their bodies are found and positively identified.
Over the years, the discovery of remains has slowed, with the last positive identification occurring in 2021. However, the Miyagi prefectural government is now in possession of six unidentified bodies found at sea or along the coast of the prefecture. Authorities are investigating the possibility that these bodies may belong to four Indonesian crew members who were swept away by the tsunami.
The crew members were aboard the 77-ton tuna hauler Daisan Kuni Maru, which was docked at Shiogama Port in Miyagi Prefecture on March 11, 2011, when the earthquake struck offshore. Despite efforts to evacuate, the ship was hit by a massive wave from the second tsunami, over 10 meters high, which caused the loss of the four Indonesian sailors. While the Japanese Coast Guard conducted a search the following day, no trace of the men was found.
The four men, aged between 27 and 30, were migrant workers from Indonesia, part of a crew largely made up of Indonesian nationals. The Japanese authorities had previously refrained from including them in the NPA’s missing persons list due to requests from the sailors’ families. The families, determined to hold out hope that their loved ones might still be alive, chose not to file official missing persons reports. They hoped to avoid any actions that could lead to the official confirmation of their deaths.
It is only now, as efforts to match the unidentified bodies to the missing sailors have begun, that there is a renewed possibility of closure. Authorities are working to compare the remains with the identities of the four Indonesian crew members, although the investigation has only just started.
Stay tuned to The Asia Review for further updates on this ongoing story.
