Soccer Ball Swept Away by Japanese Tsunami Reaches Alaska
David Baxter and his Japanese wife Yumi pose with a soccer ball which they found at a remote site in the Gulf of Alaska. (Photo: REUTERS/Kyodo)
wo location feature in the Geo Quiz.
One is a town of Rikuzentakata, a Japanese town in Iwate Prefecture, that was very badly hit by the tsunami last year.
That tsunami devastated a long stretch of Japan’s northeastern coast and sucked a vast amount of debris and wreckage out to sea.
It all got caught up in the currents and was slowly carried across the Pacific.
Some of it has been washing up on the shores of Middleton Island, the second place that figures in our quiz.
Middleton is located in the Gulf of Alaska and we want you to estimate the distance of that trans-Pacific ocean crossing.
3,000 to 3,500 miles is the range that we were looking for as the answer to the Geo Quiz.
And that is the approximate distance covered by a soccer ball that was part of the debris that recently washed up on Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska.
The ball was washed out to sea by last year’s tsunami in Japan.
Anchor Marco Werman talks to David Baxter, who came across the ball on the island.
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