Water, Water, Everywhere...Except in Tokyo

Flood Prevention in Tokyo 

Second post in a week...NOT BAD! I decided that I'd post some educational articles about Japan on here from other websites that I found interesting, and didn't want to write all over again...so I'll provide a link to it below:

 CNN - How Giant Tunnels Protect Tokyo From Flood Threat (written by Alex Zolbert)

Tokyo is a BIG CITY! Over 13 million people live here (as of 2013)! If you include the entire Greater Metropolitan Tokyo area that would be over 35 million people!

In addition to the danger caused by earthquakes, there is another destructive force of nature that has the ability to cause even more damage to this enormous cosmopolitan city...FLOODS! Japan is a country full of mountains...which funnel massive amounts of water towards the low-lying coast...where it happens that in one place, the capital city of Tokyo is located. How does the city stop all this water from causing destruction year after year? Check this video!

   

Here are some interesting facts about the giant tunnels:

• found in the Saitama area (just 40km north of Tokyo)
• build time: 9 years (1993 - 2006)
• cost: $3 billion 
• length: 6.3 km tunnel
• power: 4 jet engines can drain 200m3 of water in 1 second

For more recent information about how Tokyo is currently UPGRADING their flood prevention structures, check out this article from Bloomberg.com and their own video report:

Bloomberg.com - Tokyo Prepares for a 1-in-200 Year Flood 
(by Chris Cooper and Kiyotaka Matsuda)

If you liked this post, and would like to see more educationally informative posts like this, please let me know, be leaving me a message! If not, I'll keep doing it anyway!