2011 Japan Tsunami
In 2011, Japan was hit by a tsunami caused by a 9.0 earthquake. Japan is a region located on an oceanic to oceanic plate boundary. It is an area known for earthquakes and tsunamis. Japan is also a very small area when compared to larger countries. Aside from that, my research has concluded that Japan sits right on sea level. This means that any wave larger than normal will breach the land.
Japan tried their hearts out to be well prepared against tsunamis building large walls along the coast in the hopes of keeping the water out. In 2011, these walls proved to be too short to handle the amount of water the 9.0 earthquake threw their way. To see an example of what the flooding looked like, this video shows the water breaching a wall; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IKIazZc-a8. One small village was considered foolish for building excessively tall walls but in the end were the only successful ones. This village was Fudai. They had a mayor who insisted the great 52 foot tall wall be built because he saw the effects of another large earthquake and new of another one years before that caused just as much damage. This proved to be the wisest choice in the end. This village had a large success in the preparation for the tsunami. Other cities were not as lucky because their walls were not tall enough for the massive earthquake which resulted in water not only flooding the walls but also destroying them in their wake.
The scientific community underestimated the potential power of the tsunami by assuming one wouldn’t happen because they weren’t getting them very often. This led them to decide against spending the money to build taller walls and to view them as tall enough to protect them from the normal waves they receive. People seemed to view the wall as a safety net that could not falter but this proved to be a false sense of security.
The 2011 tsunami not only impacted Japan. It reached California and Hawaii in less than 12 hours. It damaged cities and displaced large numbers of people. The large problem this tsunami caused happened in Hawaii near an area called Fukushima. The tsunami flooded a nuclear power plant causing officials to evacuate everyone in a 2 mile radius. Things only got worse when authorities discovered the plants had released radioactive cesium dust that was being blown all around with the wind and coated most of the area. This led to people being evacuated in a 13 mile radius displacing 200,000 people.
This disaster turned into a catastrophe from human error before it happened because of the short walls. It became a catastrophe after during the acts of people not being evacuated far enough from the nuclear power plants and elderly people being transported in the freezing cold from the hospital with low amounts of food and no running water.
In conclusion, Japan did what they felt was best and were proven wrong. Steps are now being taken to build bigger and better walls to prevent such disasters happening ever again and people all around the world are trying not to use nuclear power because it cannot be guaranteed safe to use.