Floating debris ‘more risky’ than radiation

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Houses, cars and tractor trailers washed out to sea by a 8.5m tsunami are clogging shipping lanes off Japan, posing a bigger challenge to US navy vessels and commercial lines than radiation from a leaking nuclear plant. The magnitude nine earthquake that struck off the northeast coast on March 11 launched a wall of seawater that obliterated cities and towns, and left more than 27 600 people dead or missing. More than 206 000 buildings were destroyed, damaged or swept away, the National Police Agency said yesterday. The debris has prompted Japan’s coast guard to warn ships to stay 110km away from Tokyo Electric Power’s crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture, north of the capital. That is four times as far as the 30km exclusion zone introduced by the government because of concerns about radiation. “Our forces have seen everything from cars to tractor trailers to entire, intact homes floating in the ocean,” said Anthony Falvo of the US Seventh Fleet, which is helping with recovery efforts. “They have never seen anything like it.” The navy said radiation from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant could be scrubbed off vessels with soap and water.

Japan’s coast guard posts daily reports about the debris on the internet, using data gathered from passing vessels.

As of this week, it recommended that vessels stay up to 167km out while passing the zone that suffered the brunt of the destruction from the natural disasters – a 444km stretch from Ibaraki prefecture near Tokyo to Miyagi prefecture in the northeast.

Tsunami water in some towns rose to as high as 37.9m, Jiji Press reported.

“Usually, there’s only the odd piece of debris,” said Hidefumi Akagi of Japan’s coast guard. “We’re getting reports of loads of floating objects.”

Transport Minister Akihiro Ohata said he saw tapes of the floating rubble while meeting with US officials last weekend.

“We have to figure out some way to stop the spread of the debris,” Ohata said yesterday.

The tsunami crippled the Tokyo Electric nuclear power station, which is leaking radioactive water into the sea. A Mitsui OSK vessel was refused permission to offload in China after “abnormal” radiation levels were found.

It resumed operations after the shipping line reported an independent check showed the level was “significantly lower” than the Chinese reading.

Nippon Yusen, Asia’s largest shipping line by sales, said its container ships were taking wider berths around the northeastern region. The Japan Shipowners’ Association monitored the coast guard website daily, said Hatsuho Tanaka, who runs the general affairs unit.

“It is a big stumbling block for the ships,” Tanaka said.

“Based on this information, ocean-going ships are avoiding the debris.”

Floating debris often damaged ship propellers, which could take a week to replace and at a cost of several million yen, said Shuketsu Mizukami, a general manager for the spare parts supply department at MHI Marine Engineering in Nagoya.

“Damage can unbalance the propeller and cause undue vibrations,” Mizukami said. “We have several cases a year where we have to replace the whole propeller.”

Japanese ports handle about 4 percent of the world’s containers, and, prior to the quake, 18 percent of the cargo-box ship fleet by capacity was due to call in the country, according to data from Clarkson, the biggest shipbroker.

Nippon Yusen said its car shipments had slumped since the earthquake, which shut down factories operated by Toyota, Nissan and Honda.

Nippon Yusen vessels had altered course around the debris field and had not encountered any trouble so far, said Jun Katayama, a group spokesman.

“We want to avoid our ships being scratched or dented from debris,” Katayama said.

“We’re paying close attention to Japan’s coast guard.” – Bloomberg