Hawaiian
island wiped off map by hurricane
TAMPA:
Marine debris teams were dispatched to assess the damage this week after a
tiny, remote Hawaiian island was largely wiped off the map when a raging
hurricane passed through, officials said.
East
Island was a low-lying island composed mainly of loose sand and gravel, and was
home to threatened nesting green sea turtles and endangered Hawaiian monk
seals.
All
but a couple of slivers of sand were erased from the already tiny island –
about 400 feet wide and a half mile long – when Hurricane Walaka tore through
earlier this month, satellite images from the US Fish and Wildlife Service
showed.
"East
Island appears to be under water," said a statement from the
Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
The
protected area is managed by the Department of Commerce, Department of the
Interior, State of Hawaii and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Located
about 800 kilometres northwest of Honolulu, East Island was the second largest
islet in an atoll known as the French Frigate Shoals.
Chip
Fletcher, a University of Hawaii climate scientist, told the Honolulu Civil
Beat this week he was stunned at the news.
"Oh
my God, it's gone," he was quoted as saying by the local news outlet.
"It's
one more chink in the wall of the network of ecosystem diversity on this planet
that is being dismantled."
Hurricane
Walaka peaked as a Category 5 storm, the most potent wind speed on the 1-5
Saffir-Simpson scale, and was the second strongest cyclone to ever to strike
the Pacific region.
Charles
Littnan, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
protected species division, said about half the area's green sea turtle
population nested at East Island.
Fortunately,
most of this season's juveniles made it to sea well before the storm it.
As
sea levels rise due to climate change, "these small, sandy islets are
going to really struggle to persist," he told the Huffington Post.
"This event is confronting
us with what the future could look like." -- AFP
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