Four Years After The Tsunami

[katoftw]

http://www.japan-guide.com/blog/recovery/150425.html

 

The time lapse photos are shocking from 2011, and encouraging to see the yearly changes and improvements since.

Edited June 1, 2015 by katoftw

[Bernard]

I was always curious to see what has happened years after the tsunami....a enormous amount of work has been done....what surprises me is few people in the photos.

[kvp]

Even before the tsunami Japan had a steady movement towdards the large urban centers, like Tokyo. Most people who lived at the coast either died, moved to a city or (especially elder people) are in shelters. Rebuilding every town at the exact site just raised a bit is a good plan but i'm not sure it's worth the effort. Moving the remaining people inland or at least up the hillsides is possible with minimal costs and then only the port areas have to be rebuilt, but only where there are enough people for it. Looking at the satellite photos, it looks like this is what happening. Each area has a few designated rebuild spots, that receive these huge earthworks and possibly with time, the remaining population will move there. However it could happen that even the rebuilt towns will remain ghost towns if there aren't enough people to fill them. The smaller towns will probably remain as they are, namely cleaned up, but empty. The less effected areas where more buildings remained standing however are still in danger as there are no landfills there and seawalls (even 10 meters high ones) turned out to be largely ineffective. Also, landfills are only effective if they are at least 4 or 5 stories high, since they have to be at least a 1-2 meters higher than the last wave to stand a chance next time. The photos show much smaller fills and even some reconstruction right at sea level.