Hopes this week's Trump-Kim summit will stem the tide of North Korean ghost ships washing ashore in Japan

Hopes this week's Trump-Kim summit will stem the tide of North Korean ghost ships washing ashore in Japan
Jake Sturmer and Yumi Asada 10 June 2018

On a desolate stretch of Japan's north-western coast lies a wrecked, wooden fishing boat with weather-beaten Korean characters near the bow.

Key points:
'Ghost ships' are so named because they often appear on beaches empty, or only with skeletal remains
In the last year 104 boats believed from North Korea have washed ashore in Japan
Old wooden boats started being used for fishing amid pressure from Kim Jong-un to expand the fisheries industry

A spider was the only living thing left on board, making a web between frayed ropes and a rusty engine.

Half-filled with sand, the boat sits amid slashed ropes, nets and other fishing equipment strewn on the beach.

It floated here and ran aground, empty, in February this year.

Who was on board or what actually happened before it ran aground, nobody knows.

Slightly further north, two bodies also washed ashore around the same time, but no-one can say for sure if they came from this boat.

Not far from the wreckage, local fisherman Hiroshi Hatakeyama looks over the sandy shore at an increasingly familiar sight.

continue...http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-10/north-korean-ghost-ships-wash-asho...