Tokyo - A City On The Edge

Tokyo has had it’s fair share of grief. Two major disasters rocked the Japanese capital during the twentieth century - the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the Allied bombing of 1945. After World War Two, the city was completely rebuilt and showcased to the world during the 1964 Olympics. During the following decades, Tokyo boomed but in the 1990s the bubble burst beginning Japan’s lost decade from which it is now slowly recovering. However, whether boom or bust, Tokyo is always a city that leads a precarious existence. It stands on the meeting point of three tectonic plates, the Eurasian plate, the Philippine plate and the Pacific plate. It has been hit by powerful earthquakes in 1703, 1782, 1812, 1855, 1923. Many observers view the long break from 1923 until today with great trepidation, fearing the burgeoning strain building up underneath and the fact that the present population of Tokyo is over twelve million. An earthquake hitting Tokyo that is nearly anywhere as powerful as 1923 is an utterly horrifying idea, the loss of life would be overwhelming. The signs are seriously ominous, in 2005 Japanese researchers announced that the boundary between two key tectonic plates just south of Tokyo was less than sixteen miles (26 kilometres) from the surface and in some places was only two and a half miles (4 kilometres). The Japanese government however has issued assurances that they are ready for the Big One when it comes. They maintain that all of Tokyo’s large buildings are able to withstand a magnitude 7.2 earthquake but what if it any greater? What if the city is hit by a tsunami? What then? I shudder to think.