05 April,2011 07:13 AM IST | | Agencies
A dog which spent three weeks drifting in the sea off disaster-hit Japan was reunited with its overjoyed owner yesterday, local media reported.
After watching a TV news report about the rescue, the owner of the female dog, a two-year-old named Ban, went to an animal care center in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture, to take her back. "
A member of the Japan Coast Guard holds Ban, who was rescued from the drifting remains of a roof off the coast of Kesennuma
I recognised her immediately after seeing her face," she said, hugging the animal.
"I am happy that she seems healthy. I want to cherish her when I take her back," she added, as Ban licked her face and wagged its tail.
"We'll never let go of her," the owner, who wished to remain anonymous, was quoted as saying by a centre official.
The dog was found Friday by Japan's Coast Guard drifting more than a mile off the coast of Miyagi, one of the areas hit hardest by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Dumping water
Japan plans to dump 11,500 tonnes of radioactive water at sea to regain storage space at its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant for more highly contaminated water, the plant's operator said yesterday. A spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Company said the water was only weakly radioactive.
