Photos courtesy of AFP and Reuters
The tsunami that ravaged northeast Japan in March 2011 created the biggest ever single dumping of rubbish into the sea, with about five million tonnes of shattered buildings, cars, household goods and other rubble swept away.
Read the following story from the Bangkok Post to learn more about this terrible side-effect of the tsunami.
About three-and-a-half-million tonnes, according to official Japanese estimates, sank immediately into the ocean during the 2011 tsunami, leaving more than 1.5 million tonnes of plastic, timber, fishing nets, shipping containers, industrial scrap and innumerable other objects to float deeper into the ocean.
Marine experts say the floating trash adds significantly to the Pacific’s already worrying pollution problem.
GLOBAL PROBLEM
For many years, possibly even decades, the rubbish in the ocean will be a hazard for shipping, a risk for sea mammals, turtles and birds, a hitch-hiking invitation for invasive species and a poorly understood threat to wildlife through plastic micro-particles.
“In a single stroke, the tsunami dumped 3,200 times the amount of rubbish that Japan discharges annually into the Pacific,” French environmentalist Robin des Bois said. “In plastic alone, the volume is the equivalent to several decades of accumulated waste in the Atlantic and Pacific.”
MOBILE GARBAGE
Early last year, the first debris started to wash up on shores of Oregon, Washington, southern Alaska and the Canadian province of British Columbia. They included buoys, motorbikes, empty ships and massive concrete docks.
The debris, which came from the fishing port of Misawa in Aomori prefecture, washed up in Oregon and Washington eight months apart.
WIDER IMPACT
Sherry Lippiatt, regional coordinator in California for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine debris programme, said that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data suggests the debris is no longer together in a single mass.
“Over the past two years, it has spread out across the vast North Pacific Ocean,” Lippiatt said.
Exercises
Read through the story. Then, decide whether each of the following words in the story is used as a noun, adjective, adverb or verb.
1. estimates ………………..
2. nearly ………………..
3. wildlife ………………..
4. regional ………………..
Vocabulary
- ravage (v): to badly damage something
timber (n): wood that is prepared for use in building, etc.
innumerable (adj): too many to be counted
invasive (adj): spreading very quickly and difficult to stop
accumulate (v): to gradually increase over a period of time
debris (n): pieces of wood, metal, brick, etc. that are left after something has been destroyed
