Japan’s ports are flooded with pumice from an undersea volcano | Japan

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Huge amounts of pumice pebbles, blown up months ago by an undersea volcano, have clogged dozens of ports and damaged fishing boats along Japan’s southernmost coasts.

Deputy Prime Minister Yoshihiko Isozaki said on Friday that the pumice has so far affected 11 ports in Okinawa and 19 other ports in Kagoshima Prefecture, on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu, and forced the central government to form a disaster recovery task force.

About 40 fishing boats were damaged, including six that were unable to move, and ferry services connecting to the remote islands of Okinawa and Kagoshima were temporarily suspended.

Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki said there had been “a significant impact on the fisheries and tourism industries as well as on the environment” and that the problem must be addressed quickly.

The clean-up has begun – at a port in the village of Kunigami on the northern tip of the main island of Okinawa, about 10 tons of pumice were reportedly removed per day by massive excavators, with more washing ashore. A government official in the province was quoted as saying that the “unprecedented” process could take two to three weeks to complete.

“We have no choice but to proceed with the cleaning work by trial and error,” the official was quoted by Kyodo News as saying. “We will think about how to dispose of the pumice stones after checking the safety aspects.”

On closer look, it looks very shocking. Again, I think it’s a historic event. I want you to keep saying, “Once upon a time, the Yurun Sea was full of pumice stones,” even for hundreds of years. I hope you don’t become “Once upon a time, the sandy beach of Euron was pure white”.

I want you to do something like a “pumice stone analysis meeting”… pic.twitter.com/996DuhaMYv

– Yasuko Hakoyama | Writer / proofreader (@yasukonotes) October 23, 2021

The gray pebbles came from the undersea volcano Fukutokukanuba, hundreds of kilometers away in the Ogasawara chain of islands, which erupted in mid-August. The islands are located about 1,000 kilometers (600 mi) south of Tokyo.

The Japan Coast Guard distributed a map showing the drift pattern of pumice and warned ships in the area to keep a close eye to avoid clogging their engine systems with gravel. One of its patrol ships stopped during exercises on Saturday after hitting pebbles off the coast of Okinawa.

Isozaki warned that the pebbles were moving north and could affect the entire Japanese coast. “Since pumice on the sea surface can spread to a wide area of ​​Japan, we will continue to treat this issue carefully,” he said.

Isozaki said the government working group, at its first meeting late Thursday, decided to provide support to local municipalities as a disaster recovery project, and that the damage to the fishing industries would be covered by insurance. The total cost of the disaster is still unknown.

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported that about 750 fishing boats were unable to leave port in Okinawa due to concerns about an engine problem, and that about 150 Indian mackerel, which were farmed locally, died after apparently ingesting pumice.

The Nuclear Regulatory Authority is also monitoring gravel movements to avoid any impact on Japan’s coastal nuclear power plants.

With the Associated Press

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