How one Japanese village defied the tsunami

In this photo taken Tuesday, April 26, 2011, Fudai Town Mayor Hiroshi Fukawatari poses at his town hall at Fudai town, Prefecture, northeastern Japan. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)



FUDAI, Japan (AP) -- In the rubble of Japan's northeast coast, one small village stands as tall as ever after the tsunami. No homes were swept away. In fact, they barely got wet.

Fudai is the village that survived -- thanks to a huge wall once deemed a mayor's expensive folly and now vindicated as the community's salvation.

The 3,000 residents living between mountains behind a cove owe their lives to a late leader who saw the devastation of an earlier tsunami and made it the priority of his four-decade tenure to defend his people from the next one.

His 51-foot (15.5-meter) floodgate between mountainsides took a dozen years to build and meant spending more than $30 million in today's dollars.

"It cost a lot of money. But without it, Fudai would have disappeared," said seaweed fisherman Satoshi Kaneko, 55, whose business has been ruined but who is happy to have his family and home intact.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/news/20110513p2g00m0fe089000c.html
============================================================================================
Another unsung hero..

will understand"

Great story.

Very amazing to watch.

I really wanted to figure out a way to post it in GD but, couldn't figure out how to link it. Its amazing footage and you can see the before and after affect of huge amounts of water..coming in. When I think of Tsunami I picture a big wave coming, its the aftermath you never seem to realize just how bad it is.. kowai!! Scary!

Once on the way into the land, and then as the water washed back out.

I was really concerned, watching it, that the building the camera people were in was going to be flooded. the water looked very high.

I came over here to post it, but see someone else already did, so I'll give it a kick.

Thanks for the thread, AsahinaKimi.:thumbsup:

I admit I would have been unforgivably, tragically wrong.