For residents of the West Coast of the US and Canada, they are all reminders of the devastation unleashed on the other side of the Pacific Ocean by last year's Japanese tsunami.

The March 11 disaster, which killed almost 20,000 people, generated tens of millions of tons of wreckage, most of which remained on land. But it also swept an estimated 5 million tons of debris out to sea, 70 percent of which later sank. The fate of the remaining 1.5 million tons is causing concern in communities from Alaska to California, amid warning that the trickle of debris arriving on US shores could soon turn into a deluge.

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