When the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, tons of debris and bodies were washed out to sea. Sailors have spotted entire houses, cars , tractor-trailers, capsized ships and whole houses floating in the ocean.
"It's very challenging to move through these to consider these boats run on propellers and that these fishing nets or other debris can be dangerous to the vessels that are actually trying to do the work," Ensign Vernon Dennis of the US Navy's 7th fleet said. "So getting through some of these obstacles doesn't make much sense if you are going to actually cause more debris by having your own vessel become stuck in one of these waterways."
The debris, including human body parts, is going to wash up on the U.S. west coast in about one year. It will then turn toward Hawaii and back again toward Asia. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer is expecting human feet, still in their shoes, to wash up on the West Coast shore. While most body parts will come apart and break down in the water, feet in shoes will float and stay fairly well preserved.
"So you have to imagine a city say the size of about Seattle, put it through a grinder and what happens? You wind up with all kinds of debris - bodies, boats everything from a person's life including the living themselves and half that's probably going to float," said Ebbesmeyer.
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| Predicted location of the Japan debris field |
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