Unusually cold water has devastated some of the world's most northerly coral reefs, which lie off the coast of western Japan, an environment ministry official said Wednesday.
The ministry surveyed the reefs in recent months and found widespread bleaching, with between 90 to 100 per cent of each of the six spots surveyed affected.
In four of the surveyed areas, researchers have reported between 85 per cent and 95 per cent of the bleached areas were now dead, said Yuto Takahashi, a ranger at the regional ministry office that conducted the survey.
The devastation is thought to be the result of unusually cold water temperatures in the area this year, partly produced by the meandering of the Kuroshio current, he told AFP.
-AFP, Tokyo
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