An island in Japan has disappeared, but no one has watched it for decades

Esanbe Hanakita Kojima in southeastern Japan. Until 2014, it still had no name, but in 2014, the government decided to name the island, as in 157 others, under a very specific policy developed by Tokyo on geostrategic and economic issues.

Of course, when the government made the designation, no one thought of checking whether the island still existed. In fact, no one had thought of checking for decades.

Now it seems that the islet has disappeared. In fact, as the Guardian says, it was probably "lost" under the waves without even the residents of the village of Sarufutsu, on the main island of Hokkaido, have noticed it, about 500 meters away .

Since the island was uninhabited, one could say that this is not a major disaster.

The importance of the island and its geopolitical implications

But the reality is that the disappearance of the island affects the extent of Japanese territory.

When the government gave the name of the 158 small uninhabited islands in 2014, it did so as part of a more general policy conducted by Tokyo, referring to a clearer definition of the country's territory because the islands have a seaside area. Of course, there are economic reasons, because the existence of these islands also guarantees the extension of the exclusive economic zone of the country.

In addition, the remote islands of Japan play a crucial role in the differences between Tokyo and Beijing in defining the maritime boundaries and ownership of the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

Esanbe Hanakita Kojima is also located, or rather, to the west of Japan's so-called "Northern Territories", which is the center of a long-standing conflict between Japan and Russia, known as the name of Curia Islands. The islands underwent Russian occupation in the USSR after the end of the Second World War (and the Pacific War).

How did they discover how the island had disappeared?

The inhabitants were informed of the disappearance of the island in September when the writer Hiroshi Shimizu went to the village of Sarufutsu to write a sequel to his book on the islands " hidden "from Japan.

These are the ones who sent the local fishermen with their boats to see if the island continues to … is in the right place. Of course, the fishermen confirmed what the writer had already said, namely that the island had disappeared.

Older fishermen told Asahi that they remembered going to the island several decades ago, but since then they have escaped the area because navigation systems recognize it as an underwater reef.

Meanwhile, the coastguard of Japan stated that they were on the island for the last time in 1987, and that it was 1.4 meters above sea level. Wed. Today, experts say that it may have been "lost" because eroded by the wind the ice formed in the sea during the winter months.

The Coast Guard is now visiting the area to find out what happened to the island. If the disappearance of the island is confirmed, then Exclusive Japan's economic zone will shrink.

According to international law, an island is defined as "a naturally formed terrestrial area surrounded by water and situated above its surface during aging".

Japan is not the only country to have "lost" an island. The same thing happened in the United States, which lost part of its territory when the east of the island disappeared near Hawaii after Hurricane Walaka last month.

Source: The Guardian