Ghost ships: Bodies and boats unsettle Japanese community

Ryosen Kojima opens a sliding door, enters the Zen Buddhist temple that his family has operated for four generations, and lights two candles.

He then kneels and performs a prayer, chanting and rhythmically sounding a bell by his side.

Lined up in front of the priest on a table are dozens of containers covered in brocade that hold the cremated ashes of the deceased.

Fifteen sets of ashes do not have name tags on them. They belong to unidentified North Koreans who have washed up dead on the shores of this sparsely-populated Japanese peninsula in recent months.

Kojima says he used to receive the remains of four or five North Koreans a year from the municipal government. This is the largest number of cremated North Koreans he has seen in 20 years.

"I feel sorry for them," he says.

Kojima says he used to receive the remains of four or five North Koreans a year from the municipal government. This is the largest number of cremated North Koreans he has seen in 20 years.

"I feel sorry for them," he says.

"These people from North Korea follow a different religion from us. I take care of their ashes probably in a different manner from what they would want. They will be buried without a funeral.

Ryosen Kojima, a priest at Tousenji Temple, says prayers for the recently deceased, including 15 North Koreans who died on fishing boats that washed up on the Oga Peninsula.

Record number

For years, North Korean boats -- often dubbed "ghost ships" -- have been washing up on Japanese shores.

But this year marked a record for this mysterious phenomenon. By December 18, the Japanese Coast Guard counted at least 95 North Korean boats, accompanied by at least 27 bodies. Those numbers are likely to continue rising.

Political tensions and lack of transparency from the North Korean government make it difficult to determine why so many wrecks have arrived.

One official from the Japanese Coast Guard says it could be as simple as the weather.

Generally speaking the winter ocean in the Sea of Japan [also known as the East Sea] is very rough, and the tougher winter brings more shipwrecks," the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with Japanese official protocol.

Washed up on a beach

Winter is bleak and stormy on the northwestern coast of Japan.

At sunset, the easterly winds pick up speed as they race across the sea. The gusts drive breakers pounding against the shore, spin giant wind turbines, and hurl freezing rain that bites at eyes and exposed skin.

Against this forlorn backdrop, surf crashes around two large, dark pieces of debris resting in the sand a few hundred yards apart on a beach near the city of Akita.

They are ghost ships -- overturned wooden fishing boats 15 to 20 feet in length, waterlogged and half buried in the sand.

According to the Japanese Coast Guard, the two boats washed up on December 13. While inspecting the wrecks, authorities found the decomposing bodies of four men.On Monday, two more bodies were found buried under a boat while city workers attempted to drag one of the wrecks off the beach.