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A World Without Pain Is a World Without Heroes
Five months after an earthquake shook Japan, I visited Tokyo — and witnessed how a country copes with tragedy
The fishing village on Japan’s northeastern coast existed until a few minutes past 8 p.m. on June 15, 1896, when the people inside their wooden houses opened their eyes to darkness — and a rumbling noise drowned out the sound of dogs barking, the crackle of fires settling to ash.
Four months later, an article in National Geographic described what happened next:
Only a few survivors on all that length of coast saw the advancing wave, one of them telling that the water first receded some 600 yards from ghastly white sands and then the Wave stood like a black wall 80 feet in height, with phosphorescent lights gleaming along its crest.
Those lucky enough to spy the tsunami ran for higher ground — or their roofs — except one nameless man:
A half-demented soldier, retired since the late war and continually brooding on a possible attack by the enemy, became convinced that the first cannonading sound was from a hostile fleet, and, seizing his sword, ran down to the beach to meet the foe.
The wave hit. It smashed houses to kindling, carried boats a mile inland…
