Screenshot courtesy of elpais
The King Felipe VI honors the Engineer Shigeo Takahashi with the award for Civil Engineering for his outstanding professional career and work against the Tsunamis.
The expert Engineer was recognized by the jury as "international benchmark".
The King Felipe VI honors the Engineer Shigeo Takahashi with the award for Civil Engineering for
his outstanding professional career and work against the tsunamis, this
Tuesday, March 14 at the Escuela Técnica de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, in
Madrid. The event corresponds to the IV edition of the José Entrecanales Ibarra
Awards.
Takahashi
has contributed with his valuable work and research to forecast coastal
disasters. The expert Engineer was recognized by the jury as "international benchmark" for his almost 50 years of experience in the prevention of Tsunamis.
The King has highlighted it as "one of the most important
worldwide recognitions in civil engineering". Takahashi thanked him for
his award with an emotional speech explaining that the key lesson the Japanese
have learned from catastrophes is that they must be prepared for disaster.
Takahashi
chairs the Coastal Development Institute of Technology, a research center
dedicated to predicting and preventing tsunamis. In his speech, the Engineer
said that a "correct and orderly" evacuation is the best way to
prevent the threat of a Tsunami. The Engineer reminded those present the
Tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011 that left more than 15,000
fatalities.
After the tsunami of 2011 was evident "the demand to improve
coastal defensive structures." The
security measures taken at that time were overcome by the tsunami: The
breakwater against tsunami in the industrial port of Kamaishi, the levees that
protected the international airport of Sendai and the wall that protected the
nuclear power station of Fukushima, causing "disastrous
consequences".
Takahashi
has said that the defenses of the nuclear power plants "were renewed after
the catastrophe" and that some of them are inactive, resulting in a rise
in the price of electricity. In response "it was assumed naturally by the
population, who prefers to pay more than assume the effects of this type of
disaster."
Before a
tsunami Shigeo Takahashi, the doctor in engineering by the University of Tokyo
explained that, once given the alarm. Citizens will have an average time of 30
minutes to go to an elevated terrain that will allow them to be safe,
"considering a building between 15 and 20 meters as a minimum security
height."
"We
cannot predict exactly when an earthquake will occur," said Takahashi to efeverde.
However, thanks to "GPS monitoring and pressure sensors on the seabed, we
are better prepared for such a calamity." In this context, also he
affirmed that for an earthquake to cause a "serious" threat of
tsunami, he must indicate a minimum of 7 degrees on the Richter scale.
The expert
also pointed: According to studies of this natural phenomenon; “This type of
seismic movements occur cyclically every 100 or 300 years.” Japan has one of
the most advanced systems in the world to defend its coastline against the
threat of tsunamis.
Tsunami is
a natural phenomenon caused by submarine earthquakes and originates along the
so-called Ring of Fire an area of volcanoes of important seismic activity of
about 35,000 km in length that surrounds the Pacific Ocean.
About the writer:
Luznery Vera studies Social Marketing in Coursera
