DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Grieving family members watched the hearse carrying
the casket leave after the service for Jun Nakata at
Nuuanu Mortuary yesterday.

Search resumes
tomorrow for last
Ehime Maru victim

Divers have searched 65 percent
of the submerged vessel

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Sixty Navy and six Japanese civilian divers will begin their final week of searching the Ehime Maru tomorrow with only one of the nine victims of the sunken Japanese fisheries training vessel yet to be found.

After two weeks of searching, only the body of Uwajima Fisheries High School student Takeshi Mizuguchi, 17, is missing.

Another body, found Thursday, was identified yesterday by the medical examiner as student Yusuke Terata, 17. The medical examiner, who used dental records to identify the body, said Terata's cause of death was drowning.

The recovery of Terata's body was unexpected since he was presumed lost because he was last seen on the open deck of the Ehime Maru minutes before it sank.

The Navy has exceeded its expectations of finding only five to seven of the nine missing men and boys from the Ehime Maru, which sank nine miles south of Diamond Head after being hit by the nuclear submarine USS Greeneville on Feb. 9.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Tears flush the faces of family members who were
attending the service at Nuuanu Mortuary yesterday
for Jun Nakata, one of the victims of the Ehime Maru disaster.

Yesterday's search ended around 4 p.m. -- cut short by the rainy and windy weather. The 66 divers normally work from sunrise to sunset.

Today, the divers took their first full-day's rest since the underwater search operations began two weeks ago.

The divers have been living on a 400-foot barge since Oct. 14 when the Ehime Maru was relocated to a shallow water site one mile south of the Honolulu Airport reef runway.

The 830-ton vessel had to be moved 16 miles since divers could not operate in the 2,000 feet of water where the Ehime Maru originally came to rest.

Ehime Gov. Moriyuki Kato, who spent most of last week here, returned to the western Japan prefecture with families of five of the victims Friday. He is planning a memorial service in Uwajima for all nine victims. The Ehime Maru belonged to Uwajima Fisheries High School in the city.

Although Kato said he appreciated the Navy's salvage effort, he said it does not offset the submarine's liability for causing the collision.

The ashes of five victims -- Hirotaka Segawa, 60, the chief radio operator; Toshimichi Furuya, 47, the chief engineer; Hiroshi Nishida, 49, a first engineer; and two 17-year-old students, Toshiya Sakashima and Katsuya Nomoto -- have been returned to their relatives.

Memorial services were held last night for Uwajima teacher Jun Nakata, 33.

Services are pending for another teacher, Hiroshi Makizawa, 37, whose body was found on Oct. 19 and identified on Friday.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Earlier this year, Kazuo and Mikie Nakata, parents of
Jun Nakata, a teacher aboard the Ehime Maru, cried as
they spoke at a press conference in March.

So far, 65 percent of the ship has been searched.

"They are going to continue searching the entire vessel and hope to find the last guy," said Capt. Chris Murray, the Navy's supervisor of diving.

Once the recovery operation is over this week, divers from the Chihaya, a submarine rescue vessel belonging to Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force, will do another search of the Ehime Maru.

The Navy plans to relocate the Ehime Maru to a deep water site outside of the state's 12-mile boundary in 6,000 feet of water by mid-November.