Japanese ship adrift since tsunami sunk off Alaska
Source: Agencies |
April 7, 2012, Saturday
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Print Edition
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THE cutter's guns tore holes in the 50-meter Ryou-Un Maru on Thursday, ending its long, lonely journey across the Pacific that began when Japan's deadly tsunami set it adrift more than a year ago.
The crew pummeled the ghost ship with high-explosive ammunition, and the derelict Ryou-Un Maru soon burst into flames, and began taking on water, officials said. A huge column of smoke could be seen over the Gulf of Alaska as a Coast Guard C-130 cargo plane, sent to observe the sinking, dropped a buoy to monitor for any possible pollution.
The Coast Guard warned mariners to stay away, and aviation authorities did the same for pilots. In about four hours, the ship vanished into the water, said Chief Petty Officer Kip Wadlow in Juneau. It sank into waters more than 1,830 meters deep, about 290 kilometers west of the southeast Alaska coast, the Coast Guard said.
Officials decided to sink the ship rather than risk it running aground or endangering other vessels in the busy shipping lanes between North America and Asia. The ship had no lights or communications system, and its tank could carry more than 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Officials, however, didn't know how much fuel, if any, was aboard.
A light sheen and minimal debris were visible as the vessel sank but was expected to quickly dissipate, the Coast Guard said.
The ship was at Hokkaido, Japan, and destined for scrapping when a magnitude-9.0 earthquake that struck the country in March 2011 triggered a tsunami. The waves dislodged the vessel and set it adrift. In total, about 5 million tons of debris was swept out to sea.
In the year since the tsunami, the debris from Japan has washed up on shores across the Pacific. In January, a half dozen large buoys suspected to be from Japanese oyster farms appeared at the top of Alaska's panhandle and may be among the first debris from the tsunami.
The crew pummeled the ghost ship with high-explosive ammunition, and the derelict Ryou-Un Maru soon burst into flames, and began taking on water, officials said. A huge column of smoke could be seen over the Gulf of Alaska as a Coast Guard C-130 cargo plane, sent to observe the sinking, dropped a buoy to monitor for any possible pollution.
The Coast Guard warned mariners to stay away, and aviation authorities did the same for pilots. In about four hours, the ship vanished into the water, said Chief Petty Officer Kip Wadlow in Juneau. It sank into waters more than 1,830 meters deep, about 290 kilometers west of the southeast Alaska coast, the Coast Guard said.
Officials decided to sink the ship rather than risk it running aground or endangering other vessels in the busy shipping lanes between North America and Asia. The ship had no lights or communications system, and its tank could carry more than 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Officials, however, didn't know how much fuel, if any, was aboard.
A light sheen and minimal debris were visible as the vessel sank but was expected to quickly dissipate, the Coast Guard said.
The ship was at Hokkaido, Japan, and destined for scrapping when a magnitude-9.0 earthquake that struck the country in March 2011 triggered a tsunami. The waves dislodged the vessel and set it adrift. In total, about 5 million tons of debris was swept out to sea.
In the year since the tsunami, the debris from Japan has washed up on shores across the Pacific. In January, a half dozen large buoys suspected to be from Japanese oyster farms appeared at the top of Alaska's panhandle and may be among the first debris from the tsunami.
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