DisastersTsunami debris spread across Pacific Ocean

Published 27 January 2012

The 11 March 2011 tsunami in Japan washed millions of tons of debris into the Pacific; scientists have been trying to track the trajectory of this debris that can threaten small ships and coastlines

Tsunami debris could easily cross the Pacific, then circle back to Hawaii // Source: surfermag.com

Ever since the great Japan tsunami on 11 March 2011 washed millions of tons of debris into the Pacific, scientists at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s International Pacific Research Center have been trying to track the trajectory of this debris that can threaten small ships and coastlines.

A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa release reports that for nearly half a year, senior researcher Nikolai Maximenko and scientific computer programmer Jan Hafner had only their state-of-the-art — but still untested — computer model of currents to speculate where the debris might end up. Now valuable sightings of the debris are reported from places where the model predicted.

Warned by maps of the scientists’ model, the Russian sail training ship, the STS Pallada, recently found an array of unmistakable tsunami debris on its homeward voyage from Honolulu to Vladivostok.

Soon after passing Midway Islands, Pallada spotted surprising number of floating items. “On September 22, in position 31042,21 N and 174045,21 E, we picked up on board the Japanese fishing boat. Radioactivity level — normal, we’ve measured it with the Geiger counter,” wrote Natalia Borodina, information and education mate of the Pallada.

“At the approaches to the mentioned position (maybe 10-15 minutes before) we also sighted a TV set, fridge and a couple of other home appliances.”

Borodina adds on 27 September that “we keep sighting everyday things like wooden boards, plastic bottles, buoys from fishing nets (small and big ones), an object resembling wash basin, drums, boots, other wastes. All these objects are floating by the ship.”

On 8 October the Pallada entered the port of Vladivostok. The most remarkable photo taken of the voyage is of a small fishing vessel about 20-feet long, which they were able to hoist up on to the Pallada. The markings on the wheel house of the boat show its home port to be in the Fukushima Prefecture, the area hardest hit by the tsunami.

With the exact locations of some of the by now widely scattered debris, scientists can make more accurate projections about when the debris might arrive at the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. The first landfall on Midway Islands is anticipated this winter. The debris that misses Midway will continue toward the main Hawaiian Islands and the North American West Coast