Tsunami-proof 'Great wall of Japan' divides villagers

Tsunami waves hit houses in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture in March 2011. Photo: AP
Looks if Masahito killed Abe on the sea, 40 of his neighbors almost three years ago, he is sure one: at some point, perhaps long after he is gone, the ocean will unleash a terrifying wave of his village again.
As well as dozens of other communities along the northeast coast of Japan by March 2011 earthquake and tsunami hit Koizumi is now a wasteland. Grass and weeds to grow where once there were houses. On the beach, a man for shellfish found near the remains of a solitary, except building digs.
Nobody back reverses in the low-lying district Koizumi in the Miyagi Prefecture, where 60% of the 19,000 people to live, the disaster died. But get the Government the way this deserted strip of land is tsunami proof as part of a £5 billion, to defend 230 kilometres of coast with hundreds of towering concrete walls.
The scope of the project, the great wall of Japan, by the critics is called even by the standards of a country where a large part of the coast is already protected against storms and erosion through concrete walls, stunning.
Under the Government's plans hatched months after the disaster are 440 walls in the worst affected prefectures of Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate are built. But while Japan's construction industry resistance among the inhabitants of swing collect the prospect of a big payday by courtesy of their allies in the ruling liberal democratic party is enjoying.
"We want to change the Government to the shape of the coastline and redesign it so a tsunami only minimal, not only would build many walls," said Abe, primary school teacher in Koizumi, who moved with his family on a hill in advance of a deadly tsunami 20 years ago.
Masahito Abe refers to the location on a dike in tsunami-stricken village of Koizumi, North East Japan. Photo: Justin McCurry for the guardian
Debate on the dike proved to be disagreement among the 1,800 residents of the village of so - now complex distributed among eight under rental service-, that some people fear that it will derail attempts to revive the village to three years after the disaster, wiped it off the map. "I want not the dike problem, people here share," said Yoshitaka Oikawa, a member of the local Assembly. "I can see that the debate weakens already, her determination together to rebuild their village."
Koizumi is displaced by the end of the year, has moved in the houses built in an area in a mountain peak two miles from the coast away carved. The 14.7 m (48 ft) wall below will protect more than rice fields, at a price of $230 million. "It's madness," said Abe wants the area to an eco-park.
Still, many of his former neighbors seem content to let tsunami defense in the hands of the authorities. "Seems to be the attitude the if the walls already planned and budgeted, why bother?" Abe said.
Christian tells dimmer, Assistant Professor in the Department of urban studies at the Tokyo University, Abe's concerns, but believes that many residents were left with little choice at the premium offered for their land prices by the Government. "In Koizumi there are people like to sell their land for dike" he said. "[they have] she could do nothing with their country and needed the money to rebuild their lives elsewhere."
Some allies have the campaign against the wall. Yoshihiro Murai, the Governor of Miyagi, votes is, during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a recent residents Forum announced that walls offered the best protection against a tsunami. His wife, Akie, has carefully allied with the defiant, warning of the damage so much could concrete for ecosystems and Tourism do.
The 3,000 people of Fudai village owe their lives a 15-meter wall, who was fired as a waste of money, when it was built at the behest of the former mayor in the 1980s. But it was the exception. The most sea walls provided inadequate protection from tsunami in March 2011. In Kamaishi, Dike, then the largest in the world just smashed the waves through the city. Concrete barriers little or even no resistance, and may have even caused deaths among people in weigh they thought safe.
"Sea walls have the potential to save lives, where they are made, yarn types not the simulated tsunami height and apron printing, ', dimmers said. "The problem is, that you, how big will be the next tsunami, predict can you so that sea walls can never 100% security. There are always a risk, no matter how high you create."
Activists estimate that it will take Japan's taxpayers a quarter a century sea wall construction, the Bill pay that eventually could cover 9,000 kilometres of coastline of the country. But the debate is about more than the cost. Each destination, whether with the plan of action decides, no construction on sites that begin as vulnerable to tsunamis.
"I want to think the rest of the world, Japan as a concrete fortress," Abe said. "The tsunami was a force of nature, so that I can forgive it for the destruction and misery, what caused it. But for people in their own environment to ruin... I can never forgive."

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