Representatives from a fish market in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture say they received a delivery last week that contained two bars of gold, worth a total of roughly $107,000. The fish market, located in Japan’s northeast region hit by the March 2011 tsunami, says it doesn’t believe the bars were sent by accident or in error, so it plans to accept them as a donation towards to recovery and restoration.
On February 8th, a package arrived via a home-delivery service that was addressed to the fish market’s president, Kunio Sunou. When he opened it up, he was surprised to find the two gold bars, each weighing one kilogram. Officials had the bars examined, to make sure they were the real deal, and experts said they were pure gold. “Earthquake Tsunami Aid Society” was the only thing written in the sender’s portion of the package label, and while they can tell the donation came from Nagano City, there was no letter or any form of explanation.
The fishing port and the surrounding facilities of Ishinomaki City were heavily damaged in the 2011 disaster, and now, just shy of two years later, they only receive around half the catch that they did before the tsunami. President Sunou and the fish market say they are incredibly thankful for the donation and are now trying to decide how to put it towards their restoration efforts. While they still have a long way to go, they say this significant form of support is very encouraging.
[via NHK]