60698    About 2,000 New Year postcards and 1,000 items of ordinary mail in the post box were damaged from burning and soaking.

60699    A witness testified that there were about ten boys around 15 to 16 around the post box, and that one of them threw something burning into the box.

60700    The Musashino Police Station is searching for the boys on charges including property destruction.

60701    On December 31, there were two minor jolts in Hokkaido and part of Tohoku, considered to be after-shocks of the Far-off Sanriku Earthquake.

60702    According to the observation of the Sendai District Meteorological Observatory, the epicenter of the quake that occurred at around 10:50 p.m. in Hokkaido and part of Tohoku was off Iwate Prefecture, at a depth of approximately 20 kilometers.

60703    The one occurring at around 1:57 a.m. in Morioka, Iwate, had an intensity of one on the Richter scale.

60704    The epicenter was off Iwate, about 40 kilometers deep.

60705    "He always acts on the spur of the moment. He talks like he's going away for a little while, like it's no big deal."

60706    The wife of adventure rider Fukashi Kazama, Emiko, laughs as she says this.

60707    Kazama has a number of daredevil feats to his credit, including motorcycling his way to the top of Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro and being the first to reach the North and South Poles by motorcycle.

60708    When he revealed his plans to Emiko, he acted in his usual lighthearted manner.

60709    The two met at a motor show.

60710    Kazama was working as a magazine editor while Emiko was working as an event model for an car manufacturer.

60711    Several months after they met, Kazama told her of his plans to scale Kilimanjaro, his first adventure challenge.

60712    She said, "I was envious. I mean, it's something I couldn't do."