VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Coast Guard will sink a so-called ghost ship from Japan floating in the north Pacific, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Wednesday.
The derelict vessel was ripped free of its moorings by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and floated across the ocean, where it was spotted off the British Columbia coast last month and is drifting toward Alaska.
Without citing its sources, the CBC said it had learned a Coast Guard ship will use its guns to blast holes in the abandoned 177-foot vessel and send it to the bottom of the Pacific. The Coast Guard had not yet announced its plans, the network said.
The Coast Guard said on its Web site Wednesday it was offering to take members of the media on an overflight of the fishing vessel Ryou-Un Maru aboard an HC-130 Hercules aircraft early Thursday.
The Guard said in a statement on its Web site the ship, which was about 164 miles west of Baranof Island Wednesday, poses a serious threat to other vessels in the region.
"The Coast Guard has the primary responsibility for response to maritime threats, including hazards to navigation," said Capt. Daniel Travers, Coast Guard District 17 chief of incident management. "This unmanned vessel poses an imminent threat to mariners and the environment. We are coordinating with our federal, state, local and tribal partners to monitor the vessel and to develop an appropriate plan to mitigate the threat to safe navigation."
