As Bad as the Japanese Tsunami Was...

It Could Have Been Worse: Japan experts warn of future risk of giant tsunami

Much of Japan's Pacific coast could be inundated by a tsunami more than 112 feet high if a powerful earthquake hits offshore, according to revised estimates by a government panel.

The panel of experts says any tsunami unleashed by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake in the Nankai trough, which runs east of Japan's main island of Honshu to the southern island of Kyushu, could top 34 meters at its highest.

An earlier forecast in 2003 put the potential maximum height of such a tsunami at less than 66 feet.

Last March's magnitude-9.0 earthquake spawned a 45-foot wave that devastated most of Japan's northeastern coast and triggered meltdowns at a nuclear power plant.

The revised tsunami projections, contained in a report released Saturday and posted on a government website, are based on new research following last March's magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami, which devastated a long stretch of Japan's northeastern coast and killed about 19,000 people.

The only way you can prepare for that is to not build housing or critical infrastructure in that zone.  Farm and aquaculture in it. Put less critical and easily replaced infrastructure in it; wind generators might be an example.  Provide everyone who works in it with an instant notification system. If you can't do that, what the hell are smart phones for anyway?

Historically, the Japanese warned against living too low to close to the coast.

Modern sea walls failed to protect coastal towns from Japan's destructive tsunami last month. But in the hamlet of Aneyoshi, a single centuries-old tablet saved the day.

"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants," the stone slab reads. "Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this poin

 Wisdom of the past tends to get lost in the rush to the future.