Japan To Build 250-Mile-Long, Four Storey-High Wall To Stop Tsunamis

An anonymous reader points out this daunting construction plan in Japan. "Japanese authorities have unveiled plans to build a giant 250-mile long sea barrier to protect its coastline from devastating tsunamis. According to the proposals, the £4.6bn ($6.8bn) barrier would reach 12.5m high in some places – stretching taller than a four storey building. It would be made out of cement – and actually be composed of a chain of smaller sea walls to make construction easier. The plan comes four years after a huge tsunami ravaged Japan's north-eastern coast."

Comments

Re:Ugly Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

To continue, your suggestion of "mounds of forested areas"... sounds like you have no sense of what forces happen in the ocean. Even just to keep a developed beach, a lot of money gets spent moving the sand back to its original position. Sand normally moves along the shoreline, so as soon as one part is developed, sand from that region isn't moved downstream... so then at your beach, you put up groins to help maintain your sand, but then sand builds up on one side... basically, if you give a damn what your shoreline looks like, someone is spending money to maintain it, even if it looks "natural" to you. The artificial islands that you see in the news exist because people have more money than sense.

A few years back, there was a local news story about a person that went along the beach, picking up stones that they saw, thinking that they washed up there and were ruining the beach... when really, the sand just got transported offshore like it does every year from the larger storm waves, and comes back from the more gentle waves in the spring. The rocks are supposed to be there, and always were.

The engineers working on this problem, they know more than you. Debugging a few Java programs does not an ocean engineer make.

Or...

[Overzeetop]

You could not build any critical infrastructure within a set distance from the coast, and no habitable buildings within a second less restrictive distance. This is basic risk mitigation. You don't build critical facilities on a fault line, you shouldn't build one in the direct path of a (potential) tsunami. Go look at the USGS website, or any of a number of wind zone maps. All this stuff has data and is plotted out for the US - all you have to do is set your risk factor (50 years for hurricane/snow, 500 for earthquake in the US) and note your exceptions.

Re:Most of Japan is very beautiful...

[AmiMoJo]

There are already a lot of these walls in Japan and they are not really ugly. They aren't walls like you would surround your house with, they have sloped sides. There is usually a path along the top and stops or slopes at intervals. They are grass covered, and sometimes lined with trees but usually kept clear. More like mounds than what most people think of as walls.