Japanese trawler lost in tsunami spotted from Canada

The unmanned vessel was assumed lost along with virtually everything else that lay in the path of the huge tsunami which decimated the east coast of Japan last year. But twelve months after the tragedy the creaking vessel has emerged 5,000 miles away in the seas off British Columbia, an eerie reminder of the tragedy which claimed 19,000 lives. As the first large object of debris to reach the other side of the Pacific, its appearance is likely to herald the arrival of more tsunami wreckage off Canada and California in the coming weeks and months. Canadian officials have been monitoring the 15m (50ft) vessel since it was spotted near the Haida Gwaii islands on Friday, to determine whether it is causing pollution or causing any obstruction. University of Hawaii researchers estimate that the tsunami created more than 25 million tonnes of debris, of which four to eight million tonnes were swept into the Pacific. A quarter of that is expected to still be floating on the surface meaning up to two million tonnes could travel across the ocean to the waters off North America. Small items of flotsam have already been washed up on the coast, but the fishing vessel is believed to be the first large relic to complete the journey. The trawler, which reportedly belonged to a squid fishing company based in Hokkaido, could have been sped along by wind as well as the strong currents carrying the tsunami relics across the ocean, experts said. Dr Simon Boxall, of the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton University, said: "For a large thing like the trawler, there is a fair chance it was wind blown which would help it accelerate. "We would expect quite a lot more rubbish to end up off the coast of Canada in the next few weeks and months. A lot depends on how much is carried by winds, and how much was simply carried by the currents." After being swept off the sea of Japan, he said, the vessel would have followed the Kuroshio, the Pacific equivalent of the Gulf Stream, which would have carried it towards the central Pacific. At a point north of Hawaii the strong current splits, with one path carrying on southwards towards California and another heading north towards Canada. The debris which goes north will become stuck in an anticlockwise swirl between British Columbia, Alaska and Siberia, while the majority will be carried south into a vast, slow whirlpool known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Dr Boxall said. From there it could either spin out towards the coast of California, or remain on the path of an enormous circular current like a Pacific ring road which would carry it back towards Japan. Dr Boxall said: "The timing is about right, it would be about a year from entering the water off Japan to finding its way to the water off the coast of British Columbia. To reach California would take slightly longer. "Because it has gone north it will tend to stick in the northern gyre but if it had gone south, that journey would take four to six years to bring it back to the waters off the south east of Japan."