Safer With Seawalls?

A woman makes her way down the seawall along the Kitakama and Ainokama coastline in Sendai, Japan. Since the tsunami in 2011, the Japanese government has spent billions of yen on the reconstruction of a 20-mile seawall along the Sendai coastline.

Before the tsunami, Japan's seawalls were flawed. The walls themselves should have been built higher, and the diesel generators that powered the walls shouldn't have been built in low places leaving them prone to flooding, theNew York Times reported in 2011. Reports indicated that water simply washed over the walls.