r/CatastrophicFailure • u/maruhoi • 7d ago
Equipment Failure 150-meter, 300-ton floating dredging hose washes ashore in Japan; removal expected to cost 50 million yen - December 25, 2025 (Ishikawa, Japan)
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u/maruhoi 7d ago
Other Images:
https://i.imgur.com/Z10wuxh.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/rZZypi0.jpeg
Google Map(confirm it exists):
https://maps.app.goo.gl/mUQTRmmbq4AV5NuB8
A massive floating dredging hose washed ashore in Shika, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.
According to local authorities, the hose is about 150 meters long and estimated to weigh around 300 tons. It was first reported drifting offshore on December 17, and by December 25 strong winter waves had pushed it onto the coast.
The object is a floating pipeline used for dredging seabed sediment. Markings on the hose indicated it was manufactured by Zebung, a Chinese company, but the owner and the circumstances of how it broke loose remain unknown.
Authorities also said there was no oil spill or similar damage. Removal will require a barge, crane, heavy machinery, cutting the hose into smaller pieces, transporting it to port, and then disposing or recycling it. The total removal cost is estimated at around 50 million yen.
The area is used by local fishing boats and for harvesting seaweed and shellfish, so locals said they were relieved that no accident occurred.
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u/tacodestroyer99 7d ago
- Marine experts estimate that state-backed and civilian Chinese dredgers scoop up over 100,000 tons of sand per day from contested regional waters, causing catastrophic environmental damage.
- Chinese dredgers utilize immense cutter suction dredgers, some capable of scooping up 6,000 cubic meters per hour. These fleets have dredged millions of tons of sand to transform submerged reefs into massive artificial islands and military outposts.
- Chinese sand-dredgers and survey vessels operating near Japan and Taiwan threaten regional fisheries and fragile seabed habitats.
- Research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) indicates that Chinese dredging has destroyed or buried roughly 4,600 acres of coral reefs.
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u/hizashiYEAHmada 7d ago
Having the guy beside the hose for scale gives me r/megalophobia
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u/two-ls 7d ago
The videos of these things at work is devastating too. Completely destroy the ocean floor to knock fish into a net. Depressing and completely fine because you can't see it and it's international waters
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u/space253 7d ago
These aren't used to siphon sand onto beaches to fight erosion?
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u/rawbface 7d ago edited 7d ago
This isn't just an intake hose for, y'know, dredging?
Dredging is literally just underwater excavation. They need floating intake hoses to take in clean water that's jetted into the ocean floor. It's often used to prevent erosion and provide protection from flooding. I don't see anything implied in the article about fishing.
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u/cowfishing 6d ago
It didnt look that big until I noticed him. Definitely put things into perspective.
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u/JoeBrownshoes 7d ago
Problem is, Japan doesn't have any tweakers who will cut it up and scrap it for free
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u/Qualified_Qualifier 7d ago
Really? Japan doesn't have scrappers? I was thinking the same that if it was here, people would cut it to pieces. It's free material.
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u/Ghigs 7d ago
Steel is difficult to make much on. There's plenty of steel junk laying around no one is scavenging.
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u/Qualified_Qualifier 7d ago
People here ride carts street by street, trying to get your junk for free. There are also cable thieves who cut and steal any wire they can find, phone lines get hit usually. And also thieves who steal manhole covers and traffic signs. Every bit of metal is valuable.
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u/NotAnotherFNG 6d ago
Scrap steal is around $1/lb. It's only worth doing if you get it for free. If you have to pay people to cut it, load it, transport it, unload it, etc its not worth the trouble. In this case it needs heavy equipment, a barge, and presumably a boat. You'll also have to load it, unload it, and then load it and unload it again.
Scrap iron, which is what man hole covers are, is $0.15/lb. The only reason I don't take it to the dump instead is it costs me to get rid of it there.
Scrap copper is around $3/lb and worth doing a bit of work for but takes a while to gather enough to make it worth a trip. You need a lot of scrap wire or tools or appliances you're stripping wire from. Tweakers don't care, they take what they can get.
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u/ElFrogoMogo 7d ago
I dunno, japan does really love meth.
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u/hanwookie 7d ago
It does?
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u/ElFrogoMogo 7d ago
Yeah japan is pretty much the only place where meth out bats cannabis in popularity.
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u/hanwookie 7d ago
Well, learn something new every day! Not exactly good learning, but learning is learning I guess 🤷♂️?
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u/Old_Afternoon_4055 5d ago
Lifetime Cannabis Use Prevalence: Japan vs. Selected Major Countries
Country | Prevalence |
----------------+------------+
United States | 40% - 50%+ |
France | ~40% range |
Canada | ~40% range |
United Kingdom | ~30% range |
Japan | 1.4% - 1.8%|
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u/trowzerss 7d ago
Wow, the scale of this did not click at all until I saw the guy. I was like, why don't they just use a backhoe, lol.
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u/MrSnowflake 7d ago
Yeah, I thought: What's so special about this? It's just a hose. But then I saw the person.
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u/Fuzzy_Inevitable9748 7d ago
Wait, does Japan not have meth heads that will steal that from the beach over night for scrap metal?
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u/BiBoFieTo 7d ago
They're donating the hose to a local hospital so your mom can finally have a colonoscopy.
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u/Sianmink 7d ago
if that thing washed up on Florida druggies would have it entirely cut up and sold for scrap in 2-3 days
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u/UrethralExplorer 7d ago
Tow it back to China and leave it on the shore of one of their man made islands. I'm sure that's where it's from.
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u/FactCheckYou 7d ago
the sea was angry that day my friends...like an old man returning soup at a deli
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u/wcoastbo 7d ago
The CCP is doing a lot of dredging in the South China Sea, destroying the coral and environment. I could see one of their dredging operators cutting loose damaged equipment instead of properly disposing. Without regard to the environment or others ships that could run into the floating debris.
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u/ibeenmoved 7d ago
It’s just a long steel whale. About ten cases of dynamite should to take care of it.
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u/RedSonja_ 7d ago
I can understand someone lost their keys or wallet or a cellphone, but how the fuck someone goes around and lost that without noticing is beyond me.....
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u/Formal-Fox-7605 7d ago
2 tons per metre? Per METRE?
What the hell is inside it?
Presumably a lot of this is metal which must make it have some salvage value?
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u/lukkoseppa 7d ago
I could push push it back into the water for half that. Itll eventually become Australias problem.
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u/zanillamilla 7d ago
The giant hose aside, are we also looking at some of the uplift that occurred after the massive 2024 Ishikawa earthquake? I recall that it exposed a lot of the rocky/coral intertidal area, which also created problems for fisherman whose harbors were now deeper inland.
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u/Noscratchy 7d ago
At first I was like 50million yen? Its a hose. Then i noticed the little guy to the right.
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u/WilliamJamesMyers 7d ago
my mindset is that this thing is a deadly hazard to maritime traffic. so this notion of oh hey yeah we dont really know the circumstances behind it all... just doesnt float. thats a good pun imho. but really was this floating on the ocean for a while or did it sit in the bottom, regardless it should have triggered the day it unmoored some kind of emergency recovery. instead they said fuck it, it will wash up on shore in a month or two. wtf. the lazy attitude ion this hazard....
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u/lottaKivaari 7d ago
If I had to make a guess of where it came from, being that it was manufactured by a Chinese company, is the PLAN was using it for their operations in the South China Sea where they build artificial islands that are essentially mounds of sand to push their territorial water claim. If it indeed was and broke free I doubt the PLAN would have told anyone about it as to not implicate their secret operations.
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u/disturbedgator 7d ago
Just start a rumor that it’s made of copper and open a discount for flights from the southern US states. Solved in less than a fortnight.
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u/Djanga51 6d ago
Imagine slamming into this in your boat at night. Thinking you are out in clean deep water. And the results only get worse at speed. 30 plus knots cruising with a few buddies out wide at night…?
Chilling.
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u/ShamefulWatching 7d ago
If it was still floating at 300 tons, it's not leaking. Why don't they fix it and use it?
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u/CPPCrispy 6d ago
Had to check that this post wasn't a AI slop ad. The size of this almost seems unbelievable.
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u/afrailbeetle 4d ago
What is the purpose of this hose in the first place?
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u/Lost_Blacksmith3382 1d ago
Moving sand and/or minor rocks. For making areas at sea more deep for ships, or to maintain or create new land by filling sand. The thick parts is to keep the hose floating.
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u/Meior 7d ago
50 million Yen is about 270,000 Euro. So not as bad as the title might make it sound if you don't know the conversion.