Owner identifies tsunami-swept Harley found in Canada
In this photo taken by Canadian Peter Mark in the end of April, 2012, and released on Wednesday, May 2, a motorbike lies on a beach in Graham Island, western Canada. It must have been a wild ride. Japanese media say a Harley-Davidson motorcycle lost in last year's tsunami has washed up on a Canadian island about 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) away. The rusted bike was found by Mark in a large white container where its owner, Ikuo Yokoyama, had kept it. Yokoyama, who lost three members of his family in the March 11, 2011, tsunami, was located through the license plate number, Fuji TV reported Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kyodo News, Peter Mark) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT, NO LICENSING IN CHINA, HONG KONG, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA AND FRANCE
In this undated photo taken before March 11, 2011 by its owner Ikuo Yokoyama and distributed by Japan's Kyodo News, a Harley-Davidson sits in the garage in Kakuda, Niyagi Prefecture, northern Japan. Japanese media said Wednesday, May 2, 2012, the motorcycle lost in March 11, 2011 tsunami washed up on a Canadian island about 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) away. (AP Photo/Ikuo Yokoyama via Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT, NO LICENSING IN CHINA, HONG KONG, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA AND FRANCE
TOKYO >> It must have been a wild ride. Japanese media say a Harley-Davidson motorcycle lost in last year’s tsunami has washed up on a Canadian island about 4,000 miles away.
“This is unmistakably mine. It’s miraculous,” Yokoyama told Nippon TV when shown photos of the motorcycle.
Yokoyama lost three members of his family in the March 11, 2011, tsunami, and is now living in temporary housing in Miyagi prefecture.
The motorcycle is among the first items lost in the tsunami to reach the west coast of North America. In March, an Alaska man found a football and later a volleyball from Japan; their owners were located last week using names that had been inscribed on the balls.
Canadian Peter Mark, who found the bike and its container, told Fuji that he “couldn’t believe that something like that would make it across the Pacific.” The report said he found it April 18 on Graham Island, off the coast of British Columbia.
The motorcyle was caked with “a lot of corrosion, a lot of rust,” said Mark.
When he saw the Japanese license plate, Mark wondered if it might have drifted from Japan after the tsunami, and contacted a local TV station.
The Fuji report said the motorcycle would be shipped back to Japan, and that the shop that sold it to Yokoyama would help with paperwork and storage.
Debris from the tsunami initially gathered in the ocean off Japan’s northeastern coast and has since spread out across the Pacific. In February, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said currents would carry much of the debris to the coasts of Alaska, Canada, Washington and Oregon between March 2013 and 2014, though they correctly predicted that some of it could arrive this year.
Last month, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter fired on and sank a fishing boat in the Gulf of Alaska that had drifted from Japan after the disaster. Authorities had deemed the ship a hazard to shipping and to the coastline.
