LOS ANGELES--Floating debris from the March 11 tsunami will reach the North American West Coast in three years and hit Hawaii twice, leading to potential environmental and economic damage, U.S. researchers said.
LOS ANGELES--Floating debris from the March 11 tsunami will reach the North American West Coast in three years and hit Hawaii twice, leading to potential environmental and economic damage, U.S. researchers said.
"The massive and concentrated arrival of debris will have negative effects on marine ecosystems, fisheries and shipping," the International Pacific Research Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa said.
According to the research center's forecast released April 5, the debris from Japan, including bits of buildings, automobiles, ships and myriad other things, will arrive in waters north of the Hawaiian islands in 2012, a year after the earthquake. Some of it will be washed ashore.
In 2014, the debris will reach California and Alaska in the United States, British Columbia in Canada and Baja California in Mexico. Winds and currents will then push the tsunami debris back west.
The debris will be broken down into smaller pieces in the Pacific Gyre, the North Pacific garbage patch that is a huge zone where drifting trash from various parts of the Pacific Ocean ends up. The Hawaiian islands will see some of that trash washing up on their shores in 2016.
The latest disaster washed away everything in the towns along the northeastern coast of Japan, including traffic signs, said Jan Hafner, a member of the research team. The composition of tsunami trash will be different from that of typical marine debris, which is mostly plastic, Hafner said.
The outflow will harm or kill seabirds, sea turtles and other marine organisms that accidentally ingest it, while adding to the overall pollution of the ocean, the team said.
The mountains of rubble and debris from the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami also continue to be a problem on land for Japan.
Yoshito Sengoku, deputy chief Cabinet secretary, said in Tokyo on May 8 that the government will pay most of the costs and lead efforts to remove rubble from the affected areas.
"It is a fact that the local municipalities do not have the capacity to dispose of the debris," Sengoku said. He did not include details on how the work will be handled.
Surveys on rubble in Fukushima Prefecture possibly contaminated by radioactive material from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were to begin May 9 by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Environment Ministry.
Both bodies will decide upon specific disposal methods for the rubble based on quantity, type and radiation level gleaned from the surveys.