According to reports, some 5 to 20 million tons of debris – fishing boats, furniture, refrigerators –sucked into the Pacific Ocean in the wake of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami that happened on March 11 are currently floating rapidly across the Pacific.
Researchers from the University of Hawaii have been tracking the wreckage and they estimate that it could approach the United States’ West Coast in the next three years.
University of Hawaii researcher Jan Hafner told Hawaii’s ABC affiliate KITV.”We have a rough estimate of 5 to 20 million tons of debris coming from Japan,”
According to reports, crew members from the Russian training ship the STS Pallada “spotted the debris 2,000 miles from Japan”, after passing the Midway islands sometime last month. “They saw some pieces of furniture, some appliances, anything that can float, and they picked up a fishing boat,” according to Miss Hafner. The boat was some 20-feet long, and was painted with the word “Fukushima… That is actually our first confirmed report of tsunami debris…”
But even more grisly are the predictions of U.S. oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who is expecting human feet, still in their shoes, to wash up on the West Coast within three years.
‘I’m expecting parts of houses, whole boats and feet in sneakers to wash up,’ Mr Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle oceanographer who has spent decades tracking flotsam, told MailOnline. (The Blaze)