ABSTRACT
On the 11th March 2011, Japan was thrust onto the world’s stage when an unprecedented combination of technological wizardry and uncontrollable forces of nature enabled viewers across the globe to watch in horror as thousands of Japanese people lost their lives and livelihoods before their very eyes. As the strongest recorded earthquake hit the country, and a tsunami of previously unimaginable proportions swept inland along miles of the coastline of the Tohoku region, my sons in Scotland and Switzerland were able to locate me, in Japan to update the book you see before you, luckily safe in a house on a mountain hundreds of miles southwest. There they urged me to stay, as together we watched the disaster unfold and continue for some time to threaten coastlines around Japan and further afi eld.
