Is This Your Boat?

Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011


Boat, other tsunami debris found drifting off Midway

Kyodo
LOS ANGELES — A small boat registered in Fukushima Prefecture was among debris from the March 11 tsunami sighted in the North Pacific Ocean more than 3,000 km from Japan, a research group said.

The debris, which also included a TV set and a refrigerator, was found Sept. 21 near Midway Atoll by a 90-meter Russian tall ship on a training expedition, scientists at the International Pacific Research Center at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, said Friday.

"To our knowledge, these are the first confirmed observations of the debris" away from Japan's coast, Jan Hafner of the IPRC said.

The center has been predicting the movement of the debris field based on its research of ocean currents. The scientists said the debris was found in the spot where they thought it would be.

"We are using this tsunami as a tragic experiment of nature . . . to better understand how debris moves in the North Pacific," said Nikolai Maximenko of the IPRC.

Because the Russian ship, the STS Pallada, is smaller than the commercial freighters that usually ply the high seas, it was both easy and necessary for its crew to watch out to sea for debris.

The boat found by the Russian crew was recovered and the center is now looking for the person or organization it belongs to.