[HN Gopher] Century-old stone "tsunami stones" dot Japan's coast...
___________________________________________________________________
Century-old stone "tsunami stones" dot Japan's coastline (2015)
Author : deegles
Score : 123 points
Date : 2025-08-04 12:51 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| atopal wrote:
| Reminds me of the hunger stones in Germany and neighboring
| countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_stone
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I've always been fascinated by these because I love long term
| thinking. What current "tsunami stone" would you leave to future
| generations to prevent catastrophe?
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| I think the obvious answer in the modern world would not be a
| phsyical one, but some sort of measure of wealth inequality. At
| some point, if too few have too much it destroys a country from
| the inside out over the long run. It does far more damage than
| any tsunami ever could. I don't have a number or exact measure
| in mind, but that would be the warning I would leave to future
| generations.
| NilMostChill wrote:
| Depends on how metaphorical and/or political you want to get.
|
| Arguably books could be considered warning waystones, but
| that's a stretch in this context.
|
| Physical monuments though, we have loads, lots of war memorials
| are/were intended as warning about the cost of war.
|
| Auschwitz-Birkenau being left as as it is could be considered
| another.
|
| If you want to get really close to similar intentions there are
| the long term nuclear waste warnings:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warnin...
|
| A bit more esoteric (and less warningy) and you get the signals
| we send in to space intentionally as a time-capsule/marker for
| potential alien contact.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/102jg2f/everybody...
| lostlogin wrote:
| What's the counter argument to that sign?
| imchillyb wrote:
| With radiation half lives what they are, our society should be
| brainstorming how to segregate and mark nuclear waste storage
| areas. All areas that store radioactive waste.
|
| Without clear warnings and boundaries humanity is just waiting
| for a catastrophe.
|
| A tiny sign and words don't count.
| porphyra wrote:
| 1896 is pretty recent actually I thought they were like thousands
| of years old
| muyuu wrote:
| Oldest known stones date back to the early 1400s but there must
| have been older stones. Already those stones are mostly
| unreadable because of erosion and they are dated by secondary
| sources.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| You can put warnings everytime there is a tsunami, which is
| "often" in Japan, but the issue is that a massive one like the
| 2011 earthquake and tsunami is a once in a millenium event so
| would indeed need to rely on very old warnings:
|
| " _The 2011 Tohoku earthquake occurred in exactly the same area
| as the 869 earthquake, fulfilling the earlier prediction and
| causing major flooding in the Sendai area._ [1]
|
| Modern society is not good at this sort of very long term
| consideration and planning.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/869_J%C5%8Dgan_earthquake
| anonu wrote:
| Reminds me of the forest inscriptions in the mountains of Lebanon
| which date from the time of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (~100 AD):
| Lebanese cedar wood was prized for shipbuilding and forests were
| decimated due to heavy logging. Nice to see that nature
| conservancy was alive and well, even 2000 years ago.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| This is a deeper dive on the stones and their locations. Please
| note that 317 stone tablets were built after the 2 tsunamis, 125
| (40%) of them were washed away or destroyed by the 2011 tsunami.
| https://thefunambulist.net/magazine/cartography-power/incomp...
| MarkusQ wrote:
| That suggests a possibly better strategy (though very long
| term): pepper the portion of the landscape believed to be safe
| with "it is safe to build here" monoliths, each as stable as a
| typical building, and over time only the ones that speak truly
| will remain.
|
| Would work for volcanoes and earthquakes as well.
| penneyd wrote:
| They just do the same thing with regular homes :)
| MarkusQ wrote:
| Sadly, that's at least partially true. But rebuilding on a
| sight where a home was destroyed eliminates the information
| value (that this site isn't safe from tsunami) and the
| coverage is far from uniform/regular (so you can't tell if
| there are no buildings in an area because it was previously
| undeveloped or is unsafe).
| lostlogin wrote:
| 'How old are these buildings?' would be wise to consider.
|
| This probably works for a variety of things and in many
| places.
| hinkley wrote:
| Japan has a bad habit of considering buildings as
| disposable. Odd that a land with 1000 year old temples
| knocks down 40 year old houses with zero remorse, but
| that seems to be the case.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _1000 year old temples_
|
| Well it depends. Very important shrines are dismantled
| and rebuilt every 20 years, eg https://japanwoodcraftasso
| ciation.com/2020/02/13/traditions-...
|
| There are lots of old houses in use and for sale in
| Japan, but many people prefer building a new house to
| renovating or maintaining an old one - partly for
| practical reasons, partly because newer structures are
| more likely to be earthquake-resilient, partly due to
| haunting.
| hinkley wrote:
| It has been [?] years since a tsunami washed away this stone.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It should also include the location of where the stone
| lived before the tsunami. That would help future
| archaeologists determine how big the tsunami was
| hinkley wrote:
| I suspect after a tsunami not all of the stones would be
| found again, so that's probably a good idea.
| willidiots wrote:
| The Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake of 1700 was dated using
| Japanese tsunami records:
| https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996Natur.379..246S/abstra...
| tobinc wrote:
| Can't wait for round 2!
| teleforce wrote:
| Fun facts, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was built beyond
| the warning limit of the tsunami stones.
|
| If those people that setup the tsunami stones are still alive
| during the incident they will have a kahuna of "I told you"
| moment.
| bumbledraven wrote:
| Do you have a citation for this? The most Gemini could say is:
| "While research has not identified a specific tsunami stone
| located at the Fukushima Daiichi site that was directly
| violated, the spirit of these ancient warnings was undeniably
| ignored." (https://aistudio.google.com/app/prompts?state=%7B%22
| ids%22:%...)
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I don't know if there are "Tsunami stones" in the area but
| the nuclear power plant is built at sea level [1] so would
| most probably be below them.
|
| The issue is the height of the seawalls that was not
| sufficient (and perhaps historical warnings, if any, were
| ignored):
|
| " _The subsequent destructive tsunami with waves of up to 14
| metres (46 ft) that over-topped the station, which had
| seawalls_ " [1]
|
| Edit: Regarding historical warnings:
|
| " _The 2011 Tohoku earthquake occurred in exactly the same
| area as the 869 earthquake, fulfilling the earlier prediction
| and causing major flooding in the Sendai area._ " [2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_P
| owe...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/869_J%C5%8Dgan_earthquake
| m4rtink wrote:
| IIRC the issue was the emergency diesel generators being
| flooded, preventing them from powering the emergency
| cooling pumps, resulting in the meltdowns from residual
| heat in the reactor cores and spent fuel pools.
|
| Various construction changes could have prevented this from
| happening:
|
| - the whole power plan being built higher up or further
| inland
|
| -> this would likely be quite a bit more expensive due to
| land availability & cooling water management when not on
| sea level & next to the sea
|
| - the emergency generators being built higher up or
| protected from a tsunami by other means (watertight bunker
| ?)
|
| -> of course this requires the plan cooling systems & the
| necessary wiring itself working after surviving a massive
| earthquake & being flooded
|
| An inland power plant - while quite wasteful in an island
| country - would be protected from tsunamis & certainly
| doable. On the other hand, I do wonder how would high
| concrete cooling towers handle strong earthquakes ? A lot
| of small cooling towers might have ti be used, like in Palo
| Verde nuclear generating station in Arizona.
|
| Otherwise a bizzare case could still happen, with a
| meltdown possibly happening due to your cooling towers
| falling over & their cooling capacity being lost.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Another option is designing fail safe reactors. CANDU
| reactors designs are over 60 years old now and were built
| fail safe so that if outside power to the core is cut off
| the system would safe itself by dropping control rods
| which are held up by electromagnets into the core.
| cperciva wrote:
| A reactor scram isn't necessarily enough -- you still
| have decay heat to worry about. In the case of Fukushima,
| the fission chain reaction was stopped but without
| cooling pumps the decay heat was still too much.
| aaronax wrote:
| "Beyond" is completely ambiguous in this case. Do you mean
| above or below?
| jonplackett wrote:
| Well obviously they mean below
| gus_massa wrote:
| I got very confused too. After reading a few times I
| interpreted it as a typo.
| aaronax wrote:
| Unless they mean beyond the reach of the flood waters.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Not obvious to me
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| ...beyond the (possible) reach...(of whatever(waves in this
| case))
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >Onagawa was... 60 kilometers closer than Fukushima Daiichi [to
| the epicenter] and the difference in seismic intensity at the
| two plants was negligible. Furthermore, the tsunami was bigger
| at Onagawa, reaching a height of 14.3 meters, compared with
| 13.1 meters at Fukushima Daiichi. The difference in outcomes at
| the two plants reveals the root cause of Fukushima Daiichi's
| failures: the utility's corporate "safety culture."
|
| >Before beginning construction, Tohoku Electric conducted
| surveys and simulations aimed at predicting tsunami levels. The
| initial predictions showed that tsunamis in the region
| historically had an average height of about 3 meters. Based on
| that, the company constructed its plant at 14.7 meters above
| sea level, almost five times that height.
|
| >Tepco, on the other hand, to make it easier to transport
| equipment and to save construction costs, in 1967 removed 25
| meters from the 35-meter natural seawall of the Daiichi plant
| site and built the reactor buildings at a much lower elevation
| of 10 meters.
|
| https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/onagawa-the-japanese-nuclear...
| numpad0 wrote:
| The reactors were also largely fine except for grid connections
| and the hurricane-resistant backup generator in the basement.
| It was told ad nauseum at the time that there could have been
| couples of those on the roofs and the reactor could have just
| survived.
| xrayarx wrote:
| FTA cites this article in the NYT, archive link:
|
| https://archive.is/20161221102801/http://www.nytimes.com/201...
| NaOH wrote:
| Previous and related:
|
| _Century-old stone "tsunami stones" dot Japan's coastline
| (2015)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39892533 - April
| 2024 (142 comments)
|
| _Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122825 - Aug 2015 (10
| comments)
| rembal wrote:
| I love how this article, just like a tsunami stone, surfaces on
| HN every few years. It just shows even shorter cycles of
| collective memories :)
| chollida1 wrote:
| or its just a new round of 10,000 who are learning about this
| for the first time, just like you once were
|
| https://xkcd.com/1053/
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Need those here in hill country in flash flood alley. Perhaps
| towers with an inscription and a windsock.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-08-04 23:00 UTC)