US Coastline Braces for Tsunami Debris, Impact Unclear

June 08, 2012 from Associated Press

More than a year after a tsunami devastated Japan, killing thousands and washing millions of tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean, neither the US government nor West Coast states have a clear plan for how to clean up large and potentially toxic floating wreckage washed up from the disaster.

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Sendai Earthquake of 2011

See Wikipedia Page for 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami or 2011 Sendai Earthquake. Explore this topic

Ryou-un Maru

Ryou-Un Maru was a Japanese fishing boat that was washed away from its mooring in Aomori Prefecture by the March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and drifted across the Pacific Ocean. It was spotted a year later by a routine Royal Canadian Air Force air patrol about 150 naut... Explore this topic

Marine debris

Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created waste that has deliberately or accidentally been released in a lake, sea, ocean or waterway. Floating oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the centre of gyres and on coastlines, frequently washing aground, when it i... Explore this topic

Tsunami

A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions, landslides, glacier calvings, meteorite impacts and other disturbances abo... Explore this topic

West Coast of the United States

West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States, usually California, Oregon, and Washington. More specifically, the term refers to an area defined on the east by the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada and Mojave Desert and on the west by... Explore this topic

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up... Explore this topic

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east. At 165.25 million square kilometres in area, this largest div... Explore this topic

Ghost ship

A ghost ship, also known as a phantom ship, is a ship with no living crew aboard; it may be a ghostly vessel in folklore or fiction, such as the Flying Dutchman, or a real derelict found adrift with its crew missing or dead, like the Mary Celeste. The term is sometimes used fo... Explore this topic

US Government

The government of the United States of America is the federal government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that constitute the United States, as well as one capitol district, and several other territories. The federal government is composed of three distinct branc... Explore this topic

Marine pollution

Marine pollution occurs when harmful, or potentially harmful, effects result from the entry into the ocean of chemicals, particles, industrial, agricultural and residential waste, noise, or the spread of invasive organisms. Most sources of marine pollution are land based. The ... Explore this topic

Also See

Sendai Earthquake of 2011

Ryou-un Maru

Tsunami

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