Since the well is 40 miles offshore and the weather has been relatively clement, there has been time to test dispersal techniques and prepare coastal defences.

The need to choose how to adapt to the future highlights the choices-about town planning, or forestry, or coastal defences, or immigration-that have shaped the present.

As the quake lifted the ocean floor, it triggered a tsunami (the word is Japanese) that breached with ease some of what were considered to be Japan's best coastal defences.