By ANTARA News/Kyodo
Aomori, Japan : The Japan Coast Guard on Monday recovered a body from a sunken scallop fishing boat in Mutsu Bay off Aomori Prefecture and another three bodies from the seabed around the vessel, coast guard officials said.
The coast guard said the bodies are of four of the eight crew members aboard the 5.1-ton Nikko Maru that became unaccounted for on Saturday. The bodies were identified by their families as those of captain Harumitsu Kawamura, 74 and three other crew members — Chikashi Kawamura, 46, Takayoshi Kudo, 33, and Mikijiro Matsumoto, 28.
Two of the eight were confirmed dead earlier, bringing the death toll from the shipwreck to six. Two people remain missing.
A coast guard diver at around 2:45 p.m. Monday found the boat capsized in the seabed at a depth of 26 meters. The sunken boat was identified as the Nikko Maru by its name and registration number, according to the officials.
The coast guard found one body inside the sunken boat`s wheelhouse at around 3:40 p.m. and the other three bodies at 4:30 p.m. The body found inside the vessel was later identified to be of the captain.
The boat left a port in Aomori City at 2 a.m. Saturday with five other vessels for a scallop farm 2 kilometers offshore in Mutsu Bay, but it did not return as scheduled.
On Saturday, a crew member of the fishing boat died after being rescued. The body of another member of the boat`s crew was found Sunday. Their identities have been confirmed.