Mother identifies U.S. tsunami victim

CRESCENT CITY, Calif., April 13 (UPI) -- A woman says a body found washed ashore in Oregon is that of her son, the victim of a tsunami surge generated by Japan's March 11 earthquake.

The remains of Dustin Douglas Weber, 25, were found April 2 by a person walking the shore of the Columbia River, Seattle's KOMO-TV reported.

Weber had recently moved from Bend, Ore., to the Crescent City, Calif., area to renovate a house given him by his grandmother, CNN reported Wednesday.

Family members told KOMO-TV Weber had thought the tsunami danger created by the 9-magnitude quake had passed and was standing on a sand bar near the mouth of California's Klamath River taking pictures accompanied by two friends when he was swept away in a subsequent tsunami surge.

"He was not looking in the direction it was coming from, but they saw it coming," Lori Davis said of her son.

"They tried to run down there and save him. One of the guys almost had him by the shirt. They couldn't save him. They tried to yell for him, but the ocean was too loud."

His friends, whose names were not released, were also swept away but made it back to shore.

Weber is the first person killed by a tsunami event on the West Coast since 1964 when 11 people also from the Crescent City area died in a surge created by the 9.2-magnitude great quake in Anchorage, Alaska, KOMO-TV reported Tuesday.