Japanese Tsunami Debris Reaches Alaskan Shores

Source: Associated Press

Federal scientists say that a volleyball and soccer ball that washed ashore on an island may be the first pieces of debris to arrive in Alaska from the last year's tsunami in Japan.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that (http://bit.ly/JdVDud) the sports balls were spotted by a radar technician on Middleton Island. His wife traced the writing on the balls to a Japanese school in an area hit by the tsunami.

Doug Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the balls are one of the first pieces of debris that can be traced back to Japan — and make it possible to return it to the owner.

Middleton Island lies almost due south of Cordova in the Gulf of Alaska, 70 miles from the mainland.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/japanese-tsunami-debris-reaches-alaskan-shores-16187735#.T5NKdTL0fSs

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http://www.adn.com/2012/04/20/2433870/sports-gear-may-be-first-of-tsunami.html


Japanese writing on this soccer ball, which washed ashore on Middleton Island, indicated that it came from a school in the area struck by the tsunami that hit Japan during March 2011.

Balls on Alaska beach may be first of tsunami debris

Two balls found on an Alaska beach; writing on one traced back to Japan.

By MIKE DUNHAM
Anchorage Daily News

Published: April 21st, 2012 02:56 PM
Last Modified: April 21st, 2012 02:57 PM

Two sports balls from Japan may be the first positively identified items from the Japan tsunami of last March to reach Alaska shores. According to an April 19 online notice from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Response and Restoration, a soccer ball and volleyball were found on the beach of Middleton Island by David Baxter, a technician at the radar site on the remote island in the Gulf of Alaska.

Baxter noticed Japanese writing stenciled on the balls. His wife translated the writing on the soccer ball and traced it to the name of a school. NOAA confirmed that the school was in the tsunami zone, though located uphill and not seriously damaged by the disaster.

"We're partly getting things secondhand," said Doug Helton with NOAA offices in Seattle. "We're working with the State Department and the government of Japan."

NOAA thinks this could be one of the first times anything washed away during the tsunami has been sufficiently identified as to make it possible to return it to its owner. It's definitely the first such to be retrieved in Alaska, Helton said.

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