RIKUZENTAKATA, Iwate Prefecture--An industrial-scale conveyor belt stretching three kilometers is transporting thousands of tons of clay from a mountainside to the lowland of this tsunami-stricken city.
RIKUZENTAKATA, Iwate Prefecture--An industrial-scale conveyor belt stretching three kilometers is transporting thousands of tons of clay from a mountainside to the lowland of this tsunami-stricken city.
The massive amount of clay will be used to raise the ground level in commercial and residential areas to help withstand a future tsunami.
The city was devastated by towering tsunami triggered by the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011.
Each day the conveyor belt shifts the equivalent of 20,000 cubic meters of clay, enough to fill 4,000 10-ton trucks.
A total amount of clay equal to four times the volume of Tokyo Dome is set to be moved by May 2015.
Some 4,500 residents still live in temporarily housing three and a half years after the disaster.
It is expected to take three to four years for the construction of permanent housing to start on the elevated land or on plots to be developed on higher ground.