Phone set up in Hokkaido to help ease grief after Shiretoko sinking

TOKYO – A unique phone was installed on Nov 1 beside the sea in Rausu, Hokkaido, for people to send their thoughts to those who died or went missing when the Kazu I sightseeing boat sank off the prefecture’s Shiretoko Peninsula in 2022.The accident left 20 passengers and crew members dead and six others missing.The idea to install the “Umi no Denwa” (sea phone), a black rotary telephone not wired to any network, came from Kenji Sakurai, 63, a fisherman from Rausu who has been assisting in the search for the missing.He saw the suffering endured by the victims’ families when he attended the trial of Seiichi Katsurada, 63, the president of the company that operated the Kazu I.Katsurada, whose trial ran from November 2025 to June 2026, was found guilty of professional negligence resulting in death by the district court, but he filed an appeal.Sakurai came up with the idea after he learned in March of the “Kaze no Denwa” (wind phone) in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture — a public phone also not connected to any network and set up as a place for people who lost their loved ones in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, so they can say what they want to tell the deceased.Having leased state-owned land near Minehama Fishing Port on the eastern side of the peninsula, Sakurai built a phone booth-like structure to house the phone.Sakurai was assisted by others, including a 54-year-old man from the Hokkaido city of Obihiro, whose son, then 7 years old, and ex-wife, then 42, went missing in the Kazu I accident.On Nov 1, the man spoke on the newly installed phone.“Are you okay? I miss you. I will come here anytime to talk to you,” he said.“My grief will never end, but putting my thoughts into words helped calm me a little,” he reflected.Sakurai said he was told by other victims’ families that they wanted to come to the booth.“I hope this will become a place where people can find some solace,” Sakurai said. THE JAPAN NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK