This is an older picture, I believe they've done similar installations at different location and time. A rough translation:
March 11th. Every time this day comes, we reflect on that moment. It has already been six years since the Great East Japan Earthquake. We hope that such a disaster will never happen again. Year after year, we hold onto this hope, but disasters will inevitably strike again— maybe not today, but certainly sometime in the future.
On that day, the tsunami observed in Ofunato City, Iwate Prefecture, reached a height of 16.7 meters. If it had come to the middle of Ginza here, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THIS HIGH, much higher than what we could have imagined. But just knowing this height changes the actions we can take. Yes. We can prepare now. By remembering the stories of those who lived through it, we can expand our imagination and gain valuable insight.
We will not forget that day. This is the best form of disaster prevention. This is what Yahoo believes in.
Kotoku Wamura was the mayor of the Japanese village of Fudai for several decades after WWII. He'd seen a tsunami destroy the village as a boy, and knew that Fudai had been rebuilt in the same place. There was nothing protecting it.
He was mocked locally, nationally and internationally for spending billions of yen on a state-of-the-art floodwall. He asked engineers to determine the most powerful tsunami that could happen in the region, and to build a wall that would prevent it from hitting the village.
He died in 1997, with the controversy over the cost of the wall essentially ruining his legacy.
Then the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami happened, killing tens of thousands of people and damaging hundreds of thousands buildings all over Japan.
Except in Fudai.
It was directly in the path of the tsunami. But Wamura's floodwall held. The only damage was to a few buildings built outside the wall, and no-one died.
Wamura saved over 3,000 lives, many of whom weren't even born yet when he died.
Insane how high that was. Reminds me of taking my wife down Canal in New Orleans the first time, and pointing out the signs in the neutral ground was to show how high the Katrina waters went. It's pretty humbling about how helpless we really are against nature, when it wants to kill us, it kills us
UMEBA on March 9th, 2025 at 14:59 UTC »
This is an older picture, I believe they've done similar installations at different location and time. A rough translation:
March 11th. Every time this day comes, we reflect on that moment. It has already been six years since the Great East Japan Earthquake. We hope that such a disaster will never happen again. Year after year, we hold onto this hope, but disasters will inevitably strike again— maybe not today, but certainly sometime in the future.
On that day, the tsunami observed in Ofunato City, Iwate Prefecture, reached a height of 16.7 meters. If it had come to the middle of Ginza here, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THIS HIGH, much higher than what we could have imagined. But just knowing this height changes the actions we can take. Yes. We can prepare now. By remembering the stories of those who lived through it, we can expand our imagination and gain valuable insight.
We will not forget that day. This is the best form of disaster prevention. This is what Yahoo believes in.
tommytraddles on March 9th, 2025 at 15:34 UTC »
Kotoku Wamura was the mayor of the Japanese village of Fudai for several decades after WWII. He'd seen a tsunami destroy the village as a boy, and knew that Fudai had been rebuilt in the same place. There was nothing protecting it.
He was mocked locally, nationally and internationally for spending billions of yen on a state-of-the-art floodwall. He asked engineers to determine the most powerful tsunami that could happen in the region, and to build a wall that would prevent it from hitting the village.
He died in 1997, with the controversy over the cost of the wall essentially ruining his legacy.
Then the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami happened, killing tens of thousands of people and damaging hundreds of thousands buildings all over Japan.
Except in Fudai.
It was directly in the path of the tsunami. But Wamura's floodwall held. The only damage was to a few buildings built outside the wall, and no-one died.
Wamura saved over 3,000 lives, many of whom weren't even born yet when he died.
Muavius on March 9th, 2025 at 18:32 UTC »
Insane how high that was. Reminds me of taking my wife down Canal in New Orleans the first time, and pointing out the signs in the neutral ground was to show how high the Katrina waters went. It's pretty humbling about how helpless we really are against nature, when it wants to kill us, it kills us