Teruo Saito has lived most of his 79 years within a couple of hundred meters of the Pacific, in an area that has been overwhelmed by massive tsunamis twice in the last 600 years.

Until last year's Great East Japan Earthquake, the retired company worker had almost never considered himself to be at risk. But now he has little choice other than to think about tsunamis when he regards his house 150 meters from the beach in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture, some 40 km southwest of Tokyo.

Like all of us, on March 11, 2011, Saito saw the television images of the waves devastating low-lying coastal areas of the Tohoku region to the north. He's also been on the receiving end of a concerted effort by his local government to increase citizens' tsunami awareness. That started with a hazard map he received in July telling him the location of the nearest tsunami-evacuation building. He participated in a tsunami drill in October, and around the same time began noticing signs on telegraph poles indicating how many meters above sea level the land there was.