AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi
Gathering around what is left of a disaster control center devastated by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, people bow their heads Monday, March 11, 2013 in Minamisanriku, Miyagi prefecture, Japan, in a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m. when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Japan's northeastern coast.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Japan is giving Canada $1 million to assist in the cleanup of debris that has landed on the Pacific coast province of British Columbia from the 2011 tsunami.
(MORE: Images of Japan, Before and After the Earthquake)
Japan's Vancouver Consul General Seiji Okada said California, Oregon and Washington state each are being given $1 million as well.
Canadian officials estimate up to 1.5 million metric tons of tsunami debris could reach western shores.
Okada says the funds are in recognition of Canada's support in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami. He says Canadians donated millions to aid Japan.
British Columbia Environment Minister Terry Lake says about half a million dollars has been spent on cleanup so far, but Lake says the volume of debris is not as much as once feared.
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Associated Press
A sign warns people to say out of an area where piles of radiation-contaminated soil sit on the sports field of a school in the abandoned town of Yamakiya, outside the exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan on March 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)
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