I'm sat here coaching the nipper through some Geography homework (yep, 7 week break and we are doing it with days left).
Although it's still very recent history, reading through some of the statistics on the 2011 earthquake and tsunami it really is quite chilling. Looking at a fishing town called Ofunato, as the wave approached it was over 8 metres high, but due to local geography it was funnelled and channelled down directly into the town and when it hit land it was 24 metres high and travelled miles inland. It swamped six of the town's tsunami refuge shelters.
But it wasn't the first time, same town, 1896 a similar wave killed 27,000. Same town, 1933 a similar wave killed 1,500.
Part of the assignment question says 'what can we learn about this and about Japan's disaster management plan?'
Surely the answer is: don't live in Ofunato?