TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese island about 500 meters off the coast of Sarofutsu in northern Hokkaido prefecture has disappeared, according to a coastguard survey attributed to erosion that caused it to be completely submerged in a "shallow water" site.
This is the first complete disappearance of one of Japan's 484 remote border islands.
Japan is likely to lose about 0.03 square kilometers of its territorial waters after an additional sounding of at least two years to see if the island has become a low tide.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the island is defined as "a natural area of land, surrounded by water, above water at high tide and above water at low tide".
Highlands can be used as base points for calculating territorial waters if they are located no more than 12 nautical miles (about 22 km) off the coasts of the mainland or the islands of the state.