Heights of survival (JAPAN~feature story)

[AsahinaKimi]

Life and death: After major tsunamis in 1896 and 1933, many houses in Toni, Iwate Prefecture, were relocated from low-lying valleys to "reconstruction zones" on higher land (background, above). But tragically, many others were built in their place (foreground). YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO

As Edan Corkill found out in Tohoku, on March 11 it was a fine line between life and death, and that line was often drawn generations ago.

By EDAN CORKILL
Staff writer/Japan Times

When the March 11 tsunami hit the village of Yoshihama in Iwate Prefecture, the water overran a seawall, smashed through a coastal pine forest, poured over a large embankment and then surged up a long, low-lying valley. It was a scenario almost identical to that being played out at dozens of settlements along Japan's northeast coast, except that at Yoshihama, things were different.


Day of reckoning: The tsunami lays waste paddies below the "miracle village" of Yoshihama, Iwate Prefecture, where the houses, relocated higher up, were safe. KINJI KOMATSU PHOTOS


Elsewhere, what the tsunami invariably found as it raged inland along coastal valleys like the one at Yoshihama were houses, schools, train stations, shops, businesses and people — many thousands of people. What it found at Yoshihama were rice paddies.

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http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110612x1.html

[Tripod]

1. k&r

[aquart]

2. Because the people of the last tsunami left markers, right?

WARNING not to build below the marker line.

[nonperson]

3. Well, with about 127 million people on an island slightly smaller than California

Warnings fade when you're running out of room for all of them.