Japan launches search for ‘missing’ island

Esanbehanakitakojima forms part of Japan’s maritime border - or, at least, it used to

Japan island
An island off Cape Nosappu, Hokkaido
(Image credit: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images)

Japan’s coast guard has been dispatched to investigate after a small island “vanished” off the coast of Hokkaido.

Esanbehanakitakojima, one of the country’s hundreds of uninhabited islets, previously sat just off the northern coast of Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s major islands. A 1987 coastguard survey recorded the island as rising 1.4 metres above sea level.

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