I remember waking up and looking at my Twitter feed the morning it happened. It was a day after my sister’s birthday. (Oh by the way, should she read this, happy birthday Meghan!) Japan had been hit by an enormous wave that demolished so many homes and destroyed enormous expanses of farmland, and worst of all, ended up taking an estimated 20,000 lives. If that wasn’t enough, a nuclear plant was affected, causing additional threat. The footage was unreal. Water was on fire as it continued to flow into the country, far beyond the coast. Houses were floating away with people standing on top of them. Enormous ocean liners were beached in the middle of town. Everything there was crushed together in collapsed heaps and floating away from the lives that helped build them. It was terrifying, and worst of all, it was really happening.
It’s already a year later, tomorrow. (Time-shift… today there already?) Japan has incredible earthquake awareness and preparedness however, and so 90% of the people living in the devastated area were estimated to have survived. Why have they established such a program of preparedness? This article explains very well why such an enormous earthquake struck Japan one year ago causing the massive tsunami, and could very likely happen again.
