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© 2012 AFPPhotographer captures then and now of tsunami
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© 2012 AFP
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Disillusioned
Wow! Terrible devastation, isn't it? Yet, the wonderful Jp gov can spend the reconstruction funds on security for whalers while large swaths of the north-east coast look like a dessert, which is probably more devastating!
Moderator: Your reference to whalers renders your post off topic. Please repost.
nath
And some fools want to rebuild.
jforce
This is a huge propaganda piece. The photography is well though out, and it is amazing to see how much has been cleared and rebuilt, but at what cost? For what purpose? So all the chain shops can open again? Who has money up there? Time to move on people. Truly foolish to stay there.
sunhawk
and go where? japan has been suffering migration from the country side and small cities to the megacity areas for decades. they need to rebuild their communities. build it better then before, learn the lesson from the once every few centuries tsunami and make it better.
nath
That does not make sense sunhawk. Didn't you see all the huge rocks with the warnings about tsunami from the past?
Give it up. Cannot rebuild there.
jacquii
I think that whether or not it is able to be rebuilt or will be rebuilt is yet to be seen. Let's not forget that Japan has a very long history of natural disasters & just as long a history of recouperating & rebuilding as a nation. To call these people fools is just plain mean & unsympathetic, I am sure that if JapanGal's family home/area was devasted, her & her family would deserve & want some dignigty & empathy.
NeoJamal
The hill faces, many countries build communities on them with nice views but Japan seems to have an aversion to it.
Seriously, if more of Japan's lush hill countryside were cleared out and turned into residential zones, we'd be able to afford larger plots of land and wider roads, unless of course Japan doesn't mind that their neighbor's wall is only 5 meters away and kids getting run over by a car at blind corners.
megosaa
i was expecting some before and after shots... :(
no1samurai
@megosaa
You'll find this photo essay interesting. It's in German. Just adjust the red slider.
http://www.stern.de/panorama/japan-auf-den-spuren-des-tsunamis-1789355.html
Blair Herron
Maybe you are right. It's foolish to live in Japanese island in the first place, where 20.8% (M6+) of earthquakes worldwide hit Japan, all the main costal areas of Japan are subject to tsunamis (as zichi says), deadly heavy snow in winter, deadly typhoons in summer.
Japan has a very long history of natural disasters & rebuilding. Kamakura-shi, for example, the 1498 Meiō Nankaidō earthquake M8.6 occurred off the coast of Nankai. A tsunami was recorded in Suruga Bay and at Kamakura, where it destroyed the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in. The entire town was washed away, but they rebuilt it and now 170,000 people live there. The city might get big tsunami again, and the city has revised their hazard map.
The ancestors have been warning us with tsunami warning stones, kept record of natural disasters in Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku (classical Japanese history texts)...etc. Now we need to learn from this disaster and make better tsunami warning systems, stronger buildings...etc, whatever we can. That's the way it is as long as you live in this little volcanic island.
nath
Great job on the clean up but sadly the camera cannot capture radioactive fallout. This is what the real danger is now and for the future of Japan and it is being completely mishandled by those running the show.
ReformedBasher
@zichi
Very good points. New Orleans would be a good example too.
I hope the area is rebuilt. I don't have any solutions offhand to rebuild the economy but If the land is cheap and some other incentives are available, some people tired of living in the cities would think about living there. Not to mention the locals who would prefer to rebuild than relocate.
ReformedBasher
@Blair Herron
Not so little. Japan just looks small because it has large neighbours. But I like your comment. Thumbs up from me!
Fadamor
Building on hillsides may minimize the tsunami threat, but the foundations of such buildings would be more vulnerable to earthquake forces (of which EVERYONE agrees is a more common occurance in Japan than deadly tsunamis).
Some of the discussion here reminds me of the scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail":
Like the Keep Lord in this scene, Japan keeps rebuilding - improving things as necessary with each rebuild. Civil Engineers will look at what worked last year and what didn't, then try to improve on everything this time around. Will it be 100% successful? Probably not, but it should fare better than the area did last year.
lrodriguezsosa
US can learn a lesson. How about rebuilding New Orleans?