A Japanese Village saved by a Folly

You all know about one of the biggest disastrous event in history - Tsunami, which occurred in 2011.

~16 thousand people lost their lives because of this. Other ~8 thousand, either got injured or went missing.

Here’s how 3000 people got saved from this:

Kotoko Wamura was the mayor of a small village, Fudai in Japan. He served the village for four decades(1947–1987).

Wamura wrote of the destruction he saw to the village of Fudai in 1933's tsunami: "When I saw bodies being dug up from the piles of earth, I did not know what to say. I had no words." The tsunami of 1933 killed 439 people in Fudai.

He wanted to build a seawall to save the village from future disasters.

Many of the villagers were furious, unconvinced they needed a wall that was so expensive and so ugly, blocking their ocean view. But Wamura wouldn't back down. Fudai got the tallest seawall on the whole northeast coast.

A giant wall was built, that surrounds the village, which lies about 320 miles north of Tokyo, it stands 51-feet high and 673-feet wide, and took a team 12 years to build.

People started considering this as an expensive folly.(costed $30 million in today's dollars.)

Flashforward to 2011,

Fudai's biggest casualty was its port, where the tsunami destroyed boats, equipment and warehouses. Also one resident remains missing as he made the unlucky decision to check on his boat after the earthquake.

Now, people couldn’t thank Wamura in person. So, they started going to his grave to thank him.

At his retirement, Wamura stood before village employees to bid farewell: "Even if you encounter opposition, have conviction and finish what you start. In the end, people will understand."