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Tsunami debris could reach BC

Tsunami Debris

Tsunami Debris

The largest items swept out to sea following the Japanese tsunami in March could arrive on the B.C. coastline within days, oceanographer Curt Ebbesmeyer predicted.

The main part of the 20-million-tonne debris field, equivalent in size to the state of California, isn’t expected until about 2014, but houses, fishboats and even small freighters could already be close to Canadian shores, Ebbesmeyer said.

“We just finished running a simulation with a drifter, a buoy that got lost in the area of the tsunami, and we find that the first of the debris would be here now,” Ebbesmeyer said.

Beachcombers along the west coast of B.C. should be on the lookout and report any unusual finds, he said.

Ebbesmeyer is a Seattle-based oceanographer, educated at the University of Washington, who tracks flotsam using computer models. He has consulted for multinational firms, working on projects such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan prompted Ebbesmeyer and fellow oceanographer Jim Ingraham to run computer simulations on the path of debris carried out to sea by the tsunami.

Debris moves faster if it is exposed to the wind, Ebbesmeyer said.

A mostly submerged buoy measuring ocean currents can move 11 kilometres in a day, but a small fibreglass boat can travel three times faster, he said.

“People who base their results on satellite-tracking buoys get a slower speed than those of us who track Nike shoes and hockey gloves and airplane wings,” Ebbesmeyer said.

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