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| The dock came from Japan's fishing port of Misawa |
A huge dock
torn from a Japanese port by last year's tsunami has washed up in the US state
of Oregon - 8,050km (5,000 miles) across the Pacific.
The
20m-long (66ft) concrete dock weighing 165 tonnes was spotted on Agate beach,
south-west of Portland.
A Japanese
consulate official said a commemorative plaque showed it had come from the
fishing port of Misawa.
Radiation
checks proved negative, but scientists say invasive species foreign to the area
may have hitched a ride.
A starfish
native to Japan was among the marine life still clinging to the structure,
Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation spokesman Chris Havel was quoted as
saying by the Associated Press news agency.
"This
is tsunami debris, not just from Japan, but from the tsunami itself," Mr
Havel said.
Oregon
police have now been deployed to keep people from climbing on the dock, which
was first mistaken by local residents for a barge.
Misawa lost
four docks during an earthquake and resulting tsunami on 11 March 2011. Two
docks are still missing.
This April,
the US Coast Guard used cannon to sink a crewless Japanese ship that drifted to
Alaska after the tsunami.
A month later,
a Japanese owner of a Harley-Davidson motorbike swept away by the tsunami was
amazed to find out that it had been washed up inside a container on a beach in
Canada - about 6,400km away.
Japanese
scientists estimate that some 20 million tonnes of debris were generated by the
earthquake and the incoming rush of water.
Most would
have stayed on land, and a fair proportion pulled out to sea would have sunk
rapidly. But it is possible a million tonnes of debris is still afloat.
Nearly
16,000 people were killed by the quake and tsunami in Japan.
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