A False Sense of Security

A ship tossed over the massive sea wall in Taro, Japan.

Few people in Taro remained from the great tsunami in 1933, but those that survived would never forget. The town that shares its name with Mukuni owner, Taro Arai, spent the their entire lives preparing for the next one. Teaching children in schools to run for the hills was their one loud and clear message. But more had to be done to save lives and their homes if a tsunami attacked them once again.

They installed one of the most advanced tsunami warning systems in the world. They undertook an enormous project to build the world’s largest sea wall. It was more than 1.5 miles long with both an inner wall and outer wall. that was 34 feet tall  The surface was so wide that students would job on it and some would even ride bikes on it. They called it the “Great Wall of China”. There hadn’t been a tsunami in 1,000 years that could have topped their wall. So confident they were in their wall, that people ran toward it when the tsunami hit on March 11, 2011.

But within minutes the tsunami surged over the outer wall and the inner wall sweeping away those who were on top of it and rapidly destroying most of the rest of the town. Click here to learn about our response.