일본지진의 경고

친구들;

Dr. Masanobu Shishikura란 사람이 2010년 8월에  "the Active Fault and Earthquake Research Center in Tsukuba"의 정부기관지에 "Sendai, in Miyagi Prefecture, as well as in Fukushima Prefecture"에 "쯔나미"가 곧 발생할 것이라는 논문을 발표했었다고 한다.  

41세의 지질학자인 그는 어려서 부터 화석을 관찰하는 취미를 살려서 성인이 되도록 연구하던 끝에 문제의 지역에서 토양의 사이사이에 자갈과 모래의 켜가 여러개 형성되어 있는 것을 발견하고 과거의 "쯔나미'활동의 퇴적층이라고 짐작했다는 거다.  그가 일본의 이런 지진활동의 과거 역사를 추적한 결과, 적어도 3,500년 동안에 계속되어 왔던 흔적이었음을 알 수가 있었다는 얘기다.  

최근의 기록으로는 1896과 1933에 이 지역의 북쪽에서 같은 현상이 있었으나, 이번 같이 강도가 9도에는 미치지 않았지만 조심하는 것이 바람직하다고 생각하고 이 지역의 관계자들과 더구나 원자력 발전소 측에게도 경고를 보낸 바있었다고 한다.  문론, 사람들이 '미친소리'로 처리하고 괘념치 않았던지라 이번과 같은 비참한 세기적 피해를 보게 됐다는 뉴스다.

"無知(무지)가 罪(죄)를 낳고, 罪(죄)가 死亡(사망)을 낳는다는 말"이 옳커니...  전문가의 말을 좀 들어보면 뭐가 나쁘단가?  그래서 그런지, 예수님의 말씀에 "저들이 저 하는 짓을 모르는구나"라고 말씀하시면서 그들의 용서를 하나님께 구하지 않았던가?  

"내가 너희에게 말하노니,...  귀 있는자는 들으라!"  귀가 둘이나 달렸어도 듣지를 못하고, 눈알을 두개나 굴려봐도 보지를 못하는 이런 눈먼 장님들을 두고  "내가 또 거듭 말하노니..."   靈(영)의 눈을 뜨라고 확성기를 들여대도, "소귀에 경 읽기"라..., 참으로 한심하다 아니 할 수가 없다.  

  

우리들 아무개 전임 영적 지도자를 생각한다.  여러 장로님들과 내 자신이 " 우리 교횟일에 자중해서 전념해달라고 귀에 너태(굳은 살)가 들어 앉을 정도로 진심으로 충고했었건만...  "헛되고 헛되며 헛되고 헛되니 모든 것이 헛되도다.  전에 있었던 것이 후에 다시 있겠고 이미 한 일을 후에 다시 할찌라, 해 아래는 새로운 것이 없구나."

  

Zen

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Wall Street Journal

LIFE & CULTURE
APRIL 9, 2011
The Man Who Predicted the Tsunami
After studying ancient rocks, a Japanese geologist warned that a disaster was imminent—to no avail
By PETER LANDERS
The giant tsunami that assaulted northern Japan's coast surprised just about everyone. But Masanobu Shishikura was expecting it. The thought that came to mind, he says, was "yappari," a Japanese word meaning roughly, "Sure enough, it happened."

"It was the phenomenon just as I had envisioned it," says the 41-year-old geologist, who has now become the Japanese Cassandra.

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Peter Landers/The Wall Street Journal
Masanobu Shishikura wrote in August about a likely tsunami.

Dr. Shishikura's studies of ancient earth layers persuaded him that every 450 to 800 years, colliding plates in the Pacific triggered waves that devastated areas around the modern city of Sendai, in Miyagi Prefecture, as well as in Fukushima Prefecture.

One early tsunami was known to historians. Caused by the 869 Jogan quake, its waves, according to one chronicle, killed 1,000 people. Dr. Shishikura had found strong evidence of a later tsunami in the same region, which probably took place between 1300 and 1600.

"We cannot deny the possibility that [such a tsunami] will occur again in the near future," he and colleagues wrote in August 2010. That article appeared in a journal published by the Active Fault and Earthquake Research Center in Tsukuba, the government-funded institute where Dr. Shishikura works.

He was beginning to spread the word. Plans were under way at his center to hand out maps so people would understand which areas were at risk. Dr. Shishikura had an appointment on March 23 to explain his research to officials in Fukushima.

Dr. Shishikura's boss at the center, Yukinobu Okamura, had even mentioned the results at a 2009 meeting of an official committee discussing the safety of nuclear-power plants. Dr. Okamura says the idea of beefing up tsunami preparedness didn't go anywhere.

At Dr. Shishikura's eighth-floor office, bookshelves and televisions crashed to the floor during the quake on March 11. He has found temporary office quarters one story below, where he discussed his unheeded warning. "It's unfortunate that it wasn't in time," he said. But he also felt vindicated after past slights, remembering the local official who didn't want to help him dig holes in the earth for research and who called the endeavor a "nuisance."

His work is part of a young field called paleoseismology. Kerry Sieh, a pioneer in the specialty, says that the few dozen people who do this kind of work are usually doomed to be ignored. Humans are made to trust what they have seen themselves, or what someone they know has seen. They aren't designed "to deal with these once-in-500-year events," says Dr. Sieh, formerly of the California Institute of Technology and now head of the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
From his youth, Dr. Shishikura liked to collect fossils in the hills outside Tokyo. He says he realized in high school how geology could answer questions about the past.

His method is fairly simple. Miyagi Prefecture has rich soil, but sandwiched in it are layers of sand and pebbles that Dr. Shishikura says must have been carried from the shore by tsunamis. Looking at the layers allowed his group to estimate the rough dates of waves that struck as far back as 3,500 years ago.

Many lives could have been saved, at relatively little cost, by spreading awareness of the danger. People in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures were used to strong quakes, but the location and magnitude of these seismic events didn't generate tsunamis. Further north on the eastern coast, tsunamis were well-known from quakes in 1896 and 1933. Those were of yet another, weaker variety that affected mainly low-lying areas along the coast.

During the magnitude 9.0 quake on March 11, some people well inland, thinking themselves safe, took time to change clothes or to make phone calls. Others watched the disaster unfold instead of running to high ground. They proved what Dr. Shishikura's group wrote last year about local tsunamis: "It appears to be almost completely unknown among the general public that in the past great tsunamis have inundated areas as far as 3-4 kilometers inland as the result of earthquakes exceeding magnitude 8."

Now, Dr. Shishikura's team is looking at the Nankai trough to the south, which could trigger tsunamis hitting the island of Shikoku and the Kii Peninsula. Dr. Shishikura says large tsunamis appear to hit there every 400 to 600 years, with the most recent in 1707.

Those rough calculations suggest the danger is at least a century away. Still, Dr. Shishikura says, "we had better be on the lookout."

Write to Peter Landers at peter.landers@wsj.com