Four Indonesian men in their 20s were swept off a breakwater in Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Sunday afternoon and fell into the sea, NHK reported. Two were rescued unharmed. One died and the coast guard is still searching for the fourth.
The report did not say what time the group was carried off the breakwater, how the two survivors were pulled from the water, or where the search for the missing man stood. It also gave no account of how the men came to be on the breakwater.
Japan's coastal warnings — the signs at harbor entrances and the announcements that run before a typhoon or a heavy swell — are posted and broadcast in Japanese, and the men's language is not among those routinely used on them. The report does not say whether any warning was in place at Kashima on Sunday, or whether the men saw one.