One year after a massive magnitude 9 earthquake and an even more destructive tsunami struck northeastern Japan killing nearly 20,000 people, experts at Tokyo University reckon there is up to a 70 per cent chance that the Next Big One will strike Tokyo within four years and a 98 per cent chance that such a catastrophe will befall one of the world’s most densely populated cities within 30 years.
Inundated with such dire forecasts recently, 19 out of 20 Tokyo residents said they were concerned about a mega-quake and tsunami, according to a survey published by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police last month. The same poll found that half of the city’s population lived in great fear of such a combined event.
One of the most vulnerable places in Tokyo is Odaiba. It is a forest of gleaming, futuristic office towers, apartments and shopping malls built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay where some researchers have predicted that a tsunami pushing a wall of water 30 or 40 metres may one day come ashore.
About 140,000 Tokyoites died when the last major earthquake struck the city in 1923, setting off thousands of fires that fed on the wooden houses of the day. The Japanese government reckons a magnitude seven quake centered on Tokyo would kill at least 11,000 people and cause more than $1-trillion in damages. However, the death toll could be much higher if the quake takes place under the Pacific Ocean and triggers a tsunami.
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