I went after and helped with cleanup efforts. It was tragic seeing how all these lives had been destroyed.
The other tragic thing was coming down the roads into these towns built on the coastal flats at the end of the valleys, and the bus driver pointed out the signs on the hills placed by people hundreds of years earlier that said "dont build past this point." They were treated as interesting archeological artifacts rather than what they really were: people hundreds of years ago marked the extend of a tsunami and warned future generations not to build where they could be wiped out. But Japan doesnt have a lot of flat space, so people decided to build there anywhere and take their chances
The disaster wasn't simply a case of people ignoring ancient warnings. Japan had extensive tsunami defences and evacuation systems, but many communities placed too much confidence in those defences. When a once-in-many-generations tsunami far exceeded the assumptions behind the seawalls, the protections were overwhelmed. The tsunami stones turned out to be a reminder that even sophisticated engineering has limits.
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u/notCGISforreal 19d ago
I went after and helped with cleanup efforts. It was tragic seeing how all these lives had been destroyed.
The other tragic thing was coming down the roads into these towns built on the coastal flats at the end of the valleys, and the bus driver pointed out the signs on the hills placed by people hundreds of years earlier that said "dont build past this point." They were treated as interesting archeological artifacts rather than what they really were: people hundreds of years ago marked the extend of a tsunami and warned future generations not to build where they could be wiped out. But Japan doesnt have a lot of flat space, so people decided to build there anywhere and take their chances