Marine Creature Attacks Japan!

Disaster Averted: You might have missed this. It's been a really tough week for us New MexiJews - indeed, for Jews all over the country - what with the "US Representative Ilhan Omar said this but US Representative Ilhan Omar meant that" controversy and the many repercussions thereof.

Which is not to mention the shocking (but not surprising) news of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's a) impending indictment; and b) cozying up to the Kahanists to get re-elected. And the attack on the Women of The Wall.

But Abq Jew digresses. CNN on Shabbat Pekudei reported:

Boat's collision with 'marine creature' leaves 87 injured
By Junko Ogura, CNN Updated 11:04 AM ET, Sat March 9, 2019 

Tokyo (CNN) More than 80 people were injured after a high-speed boat collided with a "marine creature" off the northwest coast of Japan, the country's Coast Guard told CNN. 

The boat was carrying 121 passengers during the collision, injuring 87 people traveling on the vessel, according to the Coast Guard from the Niigata prefecture. 

Five passengers had to be airlifted to hospital but they remained conscious. The crew of the high-speed vessel told officials that "it hit the object [which appeared] to be a marine creature." 

The Coast Guard dispatched vessels and helicopters to investigate the cause of the collision, but they have yet to find the alleged animal or any other cause of the crash. 

The incident occurred between Niigata and Sado Island, off Japan's northwest coast.

This nearly-tragic occurrence immediately brought to what, after all these years, is left of Abq Jew's mind - the second tragic event that occurred on November 22, 1963.

The first event - we of a certain age will never forget.

The second event - we of a certain age may not even remember, since its tragedy was drowned in the tragedy of the first event.

Abq Jew speaks, of course, of

The Staten Island Ferry Octopus Disaster

About which Abq Jew blogged in November 2016 (see Another Disaster, Another Memorial). Don't remember? Here is the story:

It was close to 4am on the quiet morning of November 22, 1963 when the Steam Ferry Cornelius G. Kolff vanished without a trace. 

On its way with nearly 400 hundred people, mostly on their way to work, the disappearance of the Cornelius G. Kolff remains both one of New York’s most horrific maritime tragedies and perhaps its most intriguing mystery. 

Eye witness accounts describe “large tentacles” which “pulled” the ferry beneath the surface only a short distance from its destination at Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan. Nobody on board survived and only small pieces of wreckage have been found … strangely, with large “suction cup-shaped” marks on them. 

The only logical conclusion scientists and officials could point to was that the boat had been attacked by a massive octopus, roughly half the size of the ship. 

Adding to the tragedy, is that this disaster went almost completely unnoticed by the public as later that day another, more “newsworthy” tragedy would befall the nation when beloved President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. 

Artist Joe Reginella has taken it upon himself to spread awareness of this maritime tragedy - via a website, a Facebook page, a documentary, and the Staten Island Ferry Octopus Disaster Memorial Museum.

The Staten Island Ferry Disaster Museum
hopes to preserve the memory of those lost
in this tragedy, and to educate the public
about the only known giant octopus-ferry
attack in the NY-NJ-CT tri-state area.

You can learn more about the Staten Island Ferry Octopus Disaster here and here.

Let us never forget.

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