Fudai Floodgate, Japan
The mayor of Fudai, Japan, ordered the construction of a flood gate that no one wanted to know about. He was mocked for decades, but his vision ended up saving his land.
For decades, Kotoku Wamura was ridiculed for insisting on the construction of a huge sea barrier to protect your village.
In 1967, the then mayor of Fudai, a small Japanese city with just over 3,000 inhabitants, championed a project that cost 3.56 billion yen (about 32 million euros) and took more than a decade to complete.
Many saw the project as Wamura like a unnecessary expense — until, in 2011, a Magnitude 9.1 earthquake triggered a devastating tsunamisays .
The wave completely swept away entire cities along the coast of Japan. Even locations protected by sea walls that were then considered safe were destroyed. But Fudai, where the flood gate designed by Wamura stood, remained intact.
Fudai estava na rota do tsunami. The waves advanced over the villagedestroying everything that was outside the floodgate. Trees fellhouses along the coast were razed and boats were washed away.
But when workers activated the gate’s remote system, the huge steel panels closed. A firefighter even had to manually close one of the panels, which had jammed.
When the tsunami arrived, the part of the village behind the floodgate was totally spared. No building suffered major damage.. The only fatality was a person who went out to see his boat in the port, outside the area protected by the barrier.
“From whatever angle you look at it, the effectiveness of the lock and the sea wall was truly impressive”, stated in 2011 the then mayor of Fudai, Hiroshi Fukawatari.
Kotoku Wamura’s political career spanned over 40 yearshaving begun shortly after the end of World War II. He was elected president of the chamber by ten consecutive termsand led Fudai into a period of change and growth.
The village, located about 515 kilometers from Tokyo, lived off fishing and tourism, two activities dependent on the sea. But Wamura knew better than almost anyone what how dangerous the sea could be.
Born in 1909, witnessed the terrible tsunami of 1933which reached 28.7 meters in height. He had also heard reports of the even more devastating 1896 tsunami. In Fudai, these tsunamis killed hundreds of people — a huge share of the total population.
Early on, Wamura decided that something like this would never happen in Fudai again. “When I saw bodies dug up from the mounds of earth, I didn’t know what to say. I was speechless,” Wamura wrote about the 1933 tsunami in his book about Fudai, “A 40-Year Struggle Against Poverty.”
According to Wamura himself, as a child he heard a village elder say that, in the past, giant waves had swallowed the town. The man even said that there was a stone at the top of a hill signaling how far the water had reached.
The story seems quite plausibleas Japan is full of warning stones that signal levels reached by previous tsunamis. Wamura made the protecting the village against tsunamis his life’s mission. But that’s easier said than done, even when you’re mayor.
A controversial floodgate
In 1967, Wamura got the local government to build a sea wall of 15,5 metros to protect the village’s fishing port and the houses around it. The height seemed exaggerated to somebut was ultimately considered acceptable.
Afterwards, Wamura advanced to the most important part of your plan: one comprises, with the same height as the wall, to the cove where most of the population lived. The structure would protect the river channel that runs through the heart of the village, while the sea wall would defend the coastline.
Everyone thought it was an exaggeration. Building any large structure along the coast is always a difficult task, both from a financial and logistical point of view.
But for a small, cohesive community with limited resourcesinvesting a large sum and more than a decade of work in a project that perhaps would never be “put to the test” by a large tsunami understandably generated a lot of skepticism.
Even so, Wamura insisted. I had never forgotten the destruction the sea could cause. And the two sides clashed. It wasn’t that people were opposed to the idea of a floodgate per se; the problem was the size. It was too big.
The authorities began by defend 6 meters, then 9, then 10.5. Wamura did not give in and, in the end, managed to impose his will.
Construction began in 1972, although many remained unconvinced. The plan was met with derisionmainly because it was only completed in 1984. At that time, Wamura was approaching the end of his political career and retired in 1987. It was his last big project.
When he left, he made a short speech. “Even if they encounter opposition, stand firm in your convictions and finish what you started. In the end, people will understand,” he said.
The floodgate he had built was 15.5 meters high and 205 meters long. It was composed of four huge steel panels who came down to seal the river from the sea.
Wamura died in 1998, and at the time his political opponents continued to mock the mayor and his work. But in 2011, after the devastating tsunami that hit Japan, Wamura was finally rehabilitated – and today, the inhabitants of the small Japanese village visit his tomb to pay homage to him.
