David Baxter (L) and his Japanese wife Yumi pose with a soccer ball (L) which they found at a remote site in the Gulf of Alaska and is likely the first salvageable debris from last year’s Japanese tsunami that could be returned to its owner in this photo taken in Alaska April 22, 2012 and released by Kyodo on April 23, 2012. The ball is likely the first salvageable debris from last year’s Japanese tsunami that could be returned to its owner, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The ball was found by Baxter, a technician at a radar station on Middleton Island, a remote site in the Gulf of Alaska. According to a translation provided by Tokyo-based journalists, the ball is from the Osabe School in the Iwate Prefecture, an area that was hit by the devastating tidal wave unleashed on March 11, 2011 by a magnitude 9 earthquake off Japan’s northeastern coast. Yumi is holding a volleyball found in a tsunami debris in another town hit by the tsunami and is believed to belong to a 19-year-old girl and bears her name, according to NHK. Picture taken April 22, 2012.
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