A woman who disappeared on Monday According to the Japan Coast Guard, the animal was found alive 36 hours later off the coast of Chiba Prefecture while swimming at a beach in Shizuoka Prefecture.
The woman, a 20-year-old Chinese woman, was dehydrated but conscious and did not require hospitalization.
The woman had brought an inner tube and was swimming with a friend at Shirahama Ohama Beach in Shimoda City, Shizuoka Prefecture, around 7:30 p.m. Monday. She was reported missing about 30 minutes later.
She drifted in the sea on her inner tube for about 36 hours until she was found about 50 miles (80 kilometers) away, the Yokosuka Coast Guard office said.
According to the coast guard, the woman was found by a cargo ship off the coast of Nojimazaki on the Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture at around 8 a.m. on Wednesday.
Video from the Yokosuka Coast Guard shows the woman standing on the ship, wrapped in a blue blanket, before being picked up by a helicopter operating from Haneda Air Base.
She was then handed over to an emergency medical team who took her to a hospital in Yokohama.
In an interview, she told the coast guard that she was swept away by the sea and could not return to the beach while swimming at Shirahama Ohama Beach.
During the rescue operation the weather was sunny, with an air temperature of 28.5 degrees Celsius and a water temperature of 24.1 degrees Celsius.
The crew members who helped her aboard reportedly mistook her for a crew member who had fallen into the ocean from another ship, and said she was too weak to climb up the ladder when they tried to rescue her.
