Santo Island News

Rising Seas Wash Japanese War Dead from Pacific Island Graves

Rising sea levels have washed the remains of at least 26 Japanese World War Two soldiers from their graves on a low-lying Pacific archipelago, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands said on Friday. "There are coffins and dead people being washed away from graves. It's that serious," Tony de Brum told reporters on the sidelines of U.N. climate change talks in Germany. Twenty-six skeletons have been found on Santo Island after high tides battered the archipelago from February to April, he said, adding that more may be found. Unexploded bombs and other military equipment have also washed up in recent months. "We think they are Japanese soldiers," de Brum said. "We had the exhumed skeletons sampled by the U.S.