Taxi Drivers Have Been Picking Up Ghost Passengers In This Tsunami-Hit Town

Japanese taxi drivers in one of the towns worst affected by the 2011 tsunami have reported picking up ‘ghost customers’. 

According to the Daily Mail, the drivers work in Ishinomaki – where 6,000 people died in March 2011 when a 30ft tsunami hit the town following an earthquake – and say they’ve taken fares from customers who have then vanished during the trip.

One driver said he had picked up a woman who wished to go from Ishinomaki Station to the Minamihama district, the Telegraph reports.

When he told her that area had been wiped out in the disaster, he claims the woman said: “Have I died?” When he then turned to speak to her, she had vanished.

Another driver said he picked up a man and drove him to a location across the city but found that his car was empty when he arrived there.

The earthquake and subsequent  tsunami killed more than 19,000 people in the town which was almost completely wiped out. Roughly 29,000 people lost their homes with 2,770 still missing.

As well as the taxi drivers in Ishinomaki, many locals have reported seeing ‘ghosts’ waiting outside supermarkets, or walking down the streets where they used to live.