When the Great East Japan Earthquake hit Tohoku on March 11 last year, quake researcher Masanobu Shishikura grabbed a tablet computer and called up the website of the U.S. Geological Survey in Virginia to search for information.
Seeing projections of a preliminary magnitude of 8.8 and its location off Miyagi Prefecture, he immediately realized that what his team had long dreaded had finally become reality: a recurrence of the 869 Tohoku megaquake.
He also knew what was coming next — massive tsunami that would engulf coastal areas in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures in 30 to 60 minutes, just as the previous disaster did more than 1,100 years ago.