Remains of 6-year-old girl missing since Japan’s 2011 tsunami identified
Human remains found in a coastal town in Japan's northeast in 2023 have been identified as those of a 6-year-old girl who went missing in the region's Iwate Prefecture in the massive earthquake-triggered tsunami of March 2011, police said Thursday, Kyodo reports.
The family of the girl, Natsuse Yamane, issued a statement on the latest development that came 14 years after the tsunami, saying, "We had long given up (on finding her remains), so when we were notified, it took us by surprise. We are very grateful."
File photo shows police officers searching the coastline of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 11, 2025, for remains of missing people after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. (Kyodo)
According to the police, the girl's home in the coastal town of Yamada was struck by the tsunami. A jaw fragment was found in Minamisanriku, a town about 100 kilometers to the south in neighboring Miyagi Prefecture, in February 2023 during a construction company's work to clean local beaches and sidewalks.
The police identified the jaw as the girl's through DNA testing and an analysis of protein on a tooth with the help of Tohoku University, they said, adding that the remains will be returned to her family soon.
The Miyagi police last identified the remains of a 3/11 victim in March 2021. The unidentified remains of six other people are in the custody of authorities in the prefecture.
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck off the Pacific coast, triggering a massive tsunami and a nuclear crisis. As of early this year, 15,900 people had died across the country as a result of the disaster, according to the National Police Agency, while more than 2,500 people remain missing.
As it was reported, an offshore earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck Davao Oriental province in the southern Philippines on Friday morning, prompting the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology to issue a tsunami warning for coastal areas in Mindanao.