Like hundreds of communities along Japan’s north-east coast, the village of Koizumi exists on maps only. Five years ago, an earthquake under the Pacific Ocean triggered towering waves that carried away nearly 18,000 people. The deluge flattened Koizumi and drowned 40 of its 1,800 residents. In a country with about 20 per cent of the world’s strong earthquakes, and pummelled by a tsunami roughly every seven years, the survivors know that some day calamity will almost certainly strike again.
Like hundreds of communities along Japan’s north-east coast, the village of Koizumi exists on maps only. Five years ago, an earthquake under the Pacific Ocean triggered towering waves that carried away nearly 18,000 people. The deluge flattened Koizumi and drowned 40 of its 1,800 residents. In a country with about 20 per cent of the world’s strong earthquakes, and pummelled by a tsunami roughly every seven years, the survivors know that some day calamity will almost certainly strike again.