Sep 5, 2024 · Mayor Kotoku Wamura was met with skepticism when his government built a massive floodgate for the village Fudai—until the 2011 tsunami hit. People mocked a Japanese mayor who built a large floodgate, but now they celebrate the man who saved a …

Fudai's floodgate, 4 August 2011. The village escaped destruction during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami as a result of the protection afforded by the floodgate. The area of present-day Fudai was part of ancient Mutsu Province, dominated by the Nambu clan during the Edo period, who ruled Hachinohe Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate.

May 13, 2011 · That area needed a floodgate with panels that could be lifted to allow the Fudai River to empty into the cove and lowered to block tsunamis.

May 14, 2011 · That area needed a floodgate with panels that could be lifted to allow the Fudai River to empty into the cove and lowered to block tsunamis. He insisted the structure be as tall as the seawall.

May 15, 2011 · Fudai is the village that survived – thanks to a huge wall once deemed a mayor’s expensive folly and now vindicated as the community’s salvation. The 3,000 residents living between mountains...

May 14, 2011 · The floodgate project was criticized as wasteful in the 1970s. But the gate and an equally high seawall behind the community's adjacent fishing port protected Fudai from the waves that obliterated so many other towns on March 11. Two months after the disaster, more than 25,000 are missing or dead.

May 18, 2011 · According to this AP story, the village of Fudai took a technological brute-force approach, spearheaded by a previous mayor. Kotaku Wamura was mayor of Fudai for 10 terms and, during the 70s, fought city council resistance to augment a 51-foot tall seawall with flood gates of the same height.

May 14, 2011 · His 51-foot (15.5-meter) floodgate between mountainsides took a dozen years to build and meant spending more than $30 million in today’s dollars. “It cost a lot of money. But without it, Fudai...

May 18, 2011 · Fudai is a village that survived the earthquake and tsunami in Japan thanks to a floodgate and seawall. FUDAI, Japan. In the rubble of Japan’s northeast coast, one small village stands as tall as ever after the tsunami. No homes were swept away. In fact, they barely got wet.

May 13, 2011 · At the time, the 3,000 Fudai villagers despised the $30 million (in today’s money) floodgate when the now-deceased mayor built it in the ’70s, but after March’s devastating tsunami, they’re...