ImaCannin
24th September 2012, 08:17 PM
http://www.skynews.com.au/elements/img/article/638x359/skynews_798174.jpg
http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=798174
More than 16 months after an earthquake and tsunami devastated parts of Japan, debris continues to wash ashore across the Pacific Ocean in the United States.
The debris first arrived on beaches in Alaska and Oregon but now Hawaii is being affected.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has confirmed that a large plastic bin which washed ashore on Friday was a piece of debris from Japan and had floated across the Pacific Ocean.
The news was later confirmed by Japanese officials who said the bin had come from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant.
A NOAA spokesman, Ben Sherman told the Huffington Post the bin was the 12th piece of marine debris to land in the United States.
The Huffington Post reported the bin was a four-foot by four-foot cube that was spotted off Waimanalo, on the southeast coast of Oahu, by Makai Ocean Engineering staff and was retrieved by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory
'It came at the right time, according to our model,' Nikolai Maximenko, a University of Hawaii researcher and oceanographer said.
'But in some sense, it could just be a coincidence.'
The US state department said at least five local seabirds were found dead inside the tub (must have been a group suicide ) and barnacles had grown on the outside.
The blue tub is not the only piececausing havoc for ships on the ocean, Maximenko estimates about one to two million tons of debris remain on the sea.
But the experts believe only 1 to 5 percent of it is expected to reach American and Canadian shorelines
http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=798174
More than 16 months after an earthquake and tsunami devastated parts of Japan, debris continues to wash ashore across the Pacific Ocean in the United States.
The debris first arrived on beaches in Alaska and Oregon but now Hawaii is being affected.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has confirmed that a large plastic bin which washed ashore on Friday was a piece of debris from Japan and had floated across the Pacific Ocean.
The news was later confirmed by Japanese officials who said the bin had come from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant.
A NOAA spokesman, Ben Sherman told the Huffington Post the bin was the 12th piece of marine debris to land in the United States.
The Huffington Post reported the bin was a four-foot by four-foot cube that was spotted off Waimanalo, on the southeast coast of Oahu, by Makai Ocean Engineering staff and was retrieved by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory
'It came at the right time, according to our model,' Nikolai Maximenko, a University of Hawaii researcher and oceanographer said.
'But in some sense, it could just be a coincidence.'
The US state department said at least five local seabirds were found dead inside the tub (must have been a group suicide ) and barnacles had grown on the outside.
The blue tub is not the only piececausing havoc for ships on the ocean, Maximenko estimates about one to two million tons of debris remain on the sea.
But the experts believe only 1 to 5 percent of it is expected to reach American and Canadian shorelines