Debris from Japanese tsunami bears down on the US

EIGHT months on from the devastating tsunami that hit Japan in March and the knock-on effects are still being felt thousands of miles away.

A researcher in Hawaii this week warned of a "natural disaster" caused by the huge raft of debris, weighing as much as 20 tonnes, that is making its way across the Pacific Ocean. He said that boats were coming across items in the water, in the same areas that computer models of ocean currents were predicting.

Dr Nikolai Maximenko from the University of Hawaii said there had been reports of flotsam bearing down on Midway Island, a nature reserve at the northwest tip of Hawaii. He told Radio Australia that the debris included "home appliances, lumber, wood from broken houses, TV sets, refrigerators".

He warned there could be an environmental impact on the Hawaiian islands. "Midway Island is a very special area. It's a sanctuary for many animals, such as types of albatrosses and seals," he said. "It's also the western edge of the Hawaiian national monument which is protected by law, so now we're thinking how we can actually enforce this protection against this natural disaster."

Meanwhile an oceanographer in the US is predicting that large items of debris could begin washing up even further east, on the North Pacific coast of America.

Curt Ebbesmeyer told Seattle radio station Kiro FM that flotsam might start to arrive within days. He said that larger floating items like the roofs of houses and boats stuck out above the water and caught the wind, meaning they travelled faster than other debris.

He also warned that body parts, for example severed feet inside trainers, which act as "a flotation device", could also wash up on beaches.

"We're dealing with a crash scene over in Japan, 400 miles of coast, 30,000 people missing. We need to treat this debris with a lot of respect, as if it were our own crash scene," he said. ·