On the first anniversary of the huge earthquake that hit Japan's northeastern Pacific coast, its people are still coming to terms with their grief and trying to work out what the disaster meant for the nation.
Although 3/11, as it's become known, was a bolt from the blue, the country – located in one of the world's largest and most active volcanic zones – had long expected a great earthquake and tsunami to occur sooner or later. It was well prepared for the type of disaster that would happen once every 100 years, but not for a far greater one-in-a-1000-years one. No wonder the catastrophe overwhelmed Japan's well-laid plans for protecting people, buildings and infrastructure.
Fail-safe measures to cope with a super-disaster are practically beyond the nation's wealth: the worst-case scenario is sequential or even simultaneous occurrence in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, the central Pacific coast and the southwestern Pacific coast.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/11/japan-tsunami-earthquake-recovery-future