Strict building codes saved lives

These precautions,along with earthquake and tsunami drills that are routine for every Japanese citizen,show why Japan is the best-prepared country for disasters practices that saved lives.

In Japan,the building codes have long been much more stringent on specific matters like how much a building may sway during a quake. After the Kobe earthquake in 1995,Japan also put enormous resources into new research on protecting structures.

Japan has outfitted new buildings with advanced devices called base isolation pads and energy dissipation units to dampen the grounds shaking. The dissipation units are built into a buildings skeleton. They are hydraulic cylinders that elongate and contract as the building sways,sapping energy.

The country built concrete seawalls in many communities,some as high as 40 feet,which amounted to its first line of defence. In some coastal towns,in the event of an earthquake,networks of sensors are set up to set off alarms in individual residences and automatically shut down floodgates to prevent waves from surging upriver.

But Japans massive public education programme could in the end have saved most lives,said Rich Eisner,a retired tsunami expert. In one town,Ofunato,struck by a 1960 tsunami,dozens of signs mark escape routes. Matthew Francis of URS Corporation said,For a trained population,a matter of 5 or 10 minutes is all you need to get to high ground.

The systems were not foolproof. The tsunami roared over embankments in Sendai city,washing cars,houses, according to a Japanese engineer,Kit Miyamoto. Some older buildings collapsed and scale of devastation is yet not known.