A 132-ton mass of steel and concrete that floated across the Pacific from Misawa, Japan, will be turned into a memorial.
Well, pieces of debris, some of them very large, from last year's devastating tsunami in Japan, are starting to wash up on the West Coast. A 132-ton mass of steel and concrete from Misawa, Japan, recently ended its journey across the Pacific and landed on the shores of Agate Beach, Oregon.
The hulking piece of debris has become a tourist draw, attracting over 5,000 visitors on Father's Day alone. While officials say there are no signs of radioactive contamination, the dock is covered with invasive species that hitched a 5,000 mile ride.
So what do we do with this detritus? Oregon officials have announced that the dock will be soon be carted away. But pieces of it will be repurposed into a tsunami memorial after the urging of local residents. That seems appropriate.
Hopefully the new Oregon memorial will be as elegant as the one built in Kamaishi that features a QR coded video of the site before the disaster.
Image (cc) Wikimedia Commons
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