A tide of trash from tsunami-ravaged Japan is drifting across the Pacific Ocean and should reach California’s shores in three years or less, computer models show.

Marine researchers expect the flotsam will wash up in bits and pieces, not in the huge rafts of debris that formed off Japan’s coast shortly after the March disaster that started with a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Much of the material will sink or get pulled into the vast, swirling gyre of garbage in the mid-Pacific, but some buoyant pieces — particularly plastics — should make it from coastline to coastline given the prevailing eastward currents.

The debris’ journey from Japan to San Diego will cover about 5,500 miles.

It’s an intriguing prospect for beachgoers who comb the sand for trinkets or oddities from far-off lands — say fishing buoys, household objects or the proverbial message in a bottle. It’s also a reminder of Mother Nature’s unpredictable fury and a testing ground for scientific models of ocean movements.

A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 hit Japan's northeastern coast on Sunday morning, prompting a tsunami warning for the area still recovering from a devastating quake and killer wave four months ago.

Residents in coastal areas were warned to evacuate, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

The quake hit at 9:57 local time (7:57 p.m. Saturday CDT), and a warning of a tsunami was issued for most of the northeastern coastline. The epicenter of the quake was in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan's main island, Honshu, at a depth of about 6 miles (10 kilometers).

Japanese officials predicted the quake could generate tsunami of up to 20 inches (50 centimeters), but the initial waves were only about 4 inches (10 centimeters).

Japan's northeastern coastline was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that left nearly 23,000 dead or missing and touched off a nuclear crisis at a badly damaged facility in Fukushima.

One hundred days into the nuclear emergency here, Japan is learning that danger doesn’t recede in tidy concentric circles centered on the damaged nuclear plant.

As officials bolster efforts to map the nuclear fallout with daily and sometimes hourly readings, they have found that radioactive particles concentrate in random hot spots — curling with the wind, collecting along mountainsides and raising fresh problems for residents who thought they were a safe distance from danger.

Japan’s evacuation map now resembles not a circle but a paw print, with a growing number of finger-like projections. On Thursday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano recommended the evacuation of several emerging hot spots beyond the government-ordered 12.5-mile evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant. These hot spots — some as far as 35 miles from the facility — could receive more than 20,000 microsieverts of radiation in a year, surpassing the internationally

Japan's Fukushima city said Tuesday it would hand radiation measuring devices to 34,000 children to gauge their exposure from the crippled nuclear power plant about 60 kilometres (40 miles) away.

The city will hand the "dosimeters" to all children aged between four and 15 for three months from September so that they can wear them around the clock, an official at the city's education board told AFP.

The city is located outside the government's no-entry zone 20 kilometres (12 miles) around the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, but many residents are concerned about radiation, he said.

"There have been fixed-spot radiation measurements but parents and citizens are concerned about individual exposure," said the official.

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.

The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said.

Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced a full meltdown, it said.

The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., admitted last month that nuclear fuel rods in reactors 2 and 3 probably melted during the first week of the nuclear crisis.

President Obama is pointing to problems in Japan and Europe as challenges for the U.S. economy, placing some blame on events abroad for a domestic recovery that is showing signs of slowing down.

Government data released Friday showed employers in May hired the fewest number of workers in eight months and U.S. unemployment rose to 9.1 percent, up from 9.0 percent in April.
That bump is a political challenge for the president, whose re-election in 2012 may depend on his ability to convince voters that his economic policies have been successful.
Part of his pitch will include steering attention to outside forces as causes for economic woes at home.
The president did just that in his weekly radio and Internet address, broadcast Saturday, by highlighting "head winds" that are affecting the United States.

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant said Tuesday that fuel rods inside three of the facility’s reactors likely melted in the days immediately after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said last week that repaired water gauges showed that fuel rods in Unit 1 at the plant had mostly melted and fallen into a lump at the bottom of the pressure vessel - a state that TEPCO officials have described as a meltdown - after the complex’s cooling system was knocked out by the tsunami.

Fresh data from Units 2 and 3 indicate that fuel rods in those reactors are in a similar state, spokeswoman Aya Omura said Tuesday.

In all three reactors, the melted fuel is mostly covered with water and remains at temperatures far below dangerous levels, officials say.

The president of the utility behind the world's worst nuclear disaster ince Chernobyl said Friday he was stepping down in disgrace after reporting the biggest losses in company history.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu apologized at his company's Tokyo headquarters and said he was taking responsibility for the nuclear crisis.

"I wanted to take managerial responsibility and bring a symbolic close," he told reporters, bowing several times during the news conference. "We are doing our utmost to settle the crisis."

Three reactors at the company's Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant went into meltdown after a March 11 earthquake triggered a tsunami that destroyed the plant's cooling systems. Efforts to stop leaking radiation and get the reactors under control have been a perilous struggle and are expected to continue into next year.

Health authorities in the Netherlands said Tuesday they have detected radioactive substances from 19 containers from Japan at a Rotterdam port, of which five have been temporarily seized as the amounts of the hazardous materials exceed the permissible level.

They will allow the five containers to be brought into the country if their radioactive levels fall below the standard following cleaning, they added.

It was not immediately known what are in the containers and who sent them from Japan.

The European Union has strengthened checks on radioactive materials in containers from Japan since April in the wake of the nuclear emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which was triggered by the March 11 mega earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

Japan said on Thursday it would ban anyone entering a 20-km (12-mile) evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant north of Tokyo, weeks after the tsunami-wrecked facility began leaking radiation.