The Sendai City disaster

摘要

When the earthquake occurred, I was attending a meeting in the administrative building at the Minamigamo wastewater treatment plant, which is 700m inland from the Pacific coast. The tremor was the most violent I have ever experienced, and continued for over two minutes. The treatment plant had been prepared for such an event, because the probability of an earthquake in Sendai had been predicted as 99% within 30 years. The administrative building itself had been built two years ago in accordance with earthquake design criteria.