In the end, people will understand...

(Designing Nuclear Plants according to Dürrenmatt's Laws)

Joannes Richter

A worst possible sudden turn cannot be foreseen.

It will happen all of a sudden.“1

The village was spared from the devastation brought to other coastal communities following
the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami thanks to a 15.5-meter (51 ft) floodgate that protected
the town.
The floodgate was built between 1967 and 1984 at a cost of ¥3.56 billion (approximately
US$30 million in 2011) under the administration of mayor Kotaku Wamura. Derided as a
waste of public funds, the floodgate at the 11 th of March 2011 protected the village and the
inner cove from the worst of the tsunami waves2.
At his retirement 1987 mayor Wamura stood before village employees to bid farewell:
"Even if you encounter opposition, have conviction and finish what you start. In the end,
people will understand."

According to Dürrenmatts theses mayor Wamura managed to read the tsunami's historical story till
the bitter end. He accurately studied the archives and road-marks for evidence of the highest
tsunamis and for his town he managed to order an adequate gigantic 15,5 meters tall seawall to
protect the village against the flood.
In the sense of Dürrenmatt's Laws he has been considered as a “fool”, who nullified public
warnings for extensive costs, but completed the floodgate including the high protection wall. He
retired 1987 and died 1997 at the age of 88 years. Since the tsunami Fudai's residents are visiting
his grave to honor his decisions.
In contrast other mayors of surrounding towns had been praised for erecting much cheaper
protection walls. The town of Taro had chosen for a 10-meter-tall protective seawall spanning 1.6
miles (2.5 kilometers) across a bay, but the wall easily has been overcome by the tsunami at the 11 th
of March 2011.
It had been the Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt, who in The Physicists clearly describes the
pathological contradictions in human behavior. Dürrenmatt's favorite style has been based on
alienation, in which he displays the “normal” (in his case an irresponsible) Physicist as a paranoid
man and the “foolish, abnormal” patients as responsible citizens.
According to Dürrenmatt modern society in a paradox consists of a great number of irresponsible
citizens and only a few responsible citizens, which may only be understood in a parody.
In modern world the blame for catastrophes usually will be hushed up by transposing responsibility
to other originators or alien origins such as Acts of God, etc. Identifying the pathological
irresponsibility in our societies Dürrenmatt saw this behavior may only be revealed successfully by
describing it in a grotesque.
1 The first four of 21 notes to the comedy The Physicists (1961)
2 Info from Wikipedia's Fudai ( 普 代 村 Fudai-mura) and Hosaka, Tomoko A. (13 May 2011). . Seattle Post-
Intelligencer. AP. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
The list of laws at the Physicists' appendix (1962) already has been identified as a guideline to
modern engineering for dangerous technological methods, respectively facilities (such as gen-
technology, chemical plants and nuclear reactors)3.
Dürrenmatt's Laws however cannot be considered as a proof for Dürrenmatt's prophetic insight in
engineering's failures unless we may identify a Japanese leader who initially had been considered
as a fool and later became a heroic savior of his home town. This hero has been identified as Fudai's
mayor Kotaku Wamura, who convinced his fellow citizens to build a 15,5 m tall seawall and saved
the town from destruction in a recent tsunami.
In the seventies the mayor gravely had been accused for irresponsible financial management. In
contrast the neighboring town Taro decided to choose for a much cheaper 10-meter-tall protective
seawall, which 2011 failed to withstand the tsunami.
Mayor Kotaku Wamura had been elected in office from shortly after WW II up till 1987. He
accurately studied the district's archives and road-marks for evidence of the highest tsunamis and
decided his town needed a gigantic 15,5 meters tall seawall to protect the village against the flood.
At his retirement, mayor Wamura stood before village employees to bid farewell:
"Even if you encounter opposition, have conviction and finish what you start.
In the end, people will understand."
This prophetic utterance definitely identifies Wamura's responsibility in Dürrenmatt's sense: in his
studies he did read the story down to the bitter end. In Dürrenmatt's sense Fudai's citizens
considered their mayor as a “fool”, who withstood the public opinion consequently and acted
according to his responsibility. In contrast the mayors of neighboring counties had been admired for
their cheaper solutions, which failed to resist the flood's powers.
Of course Dürrenmatt, who died 1990, might have written a new screenplay encapsulating the
tragedies of the Fukushima- and Fudai-events to illustrate the irrational behavior of modern man.
Unfortunately I feel unable to dramatize these tragedies and I can only express the admiration for
Dürrenmatt's insight respectively the foresight of mayor Kotaku Wamura, who in the seventies may
have feared his deselection, abdication – or, in one of Dürrenmatt's grotesques: his admittance into
an asylum...
Unfortunately Kotaku Wamura has only be made responsible for the tiny fisher-town Fudai and not
for the Fukushima-district, which definitely would have needed a similar hero, who would have
been able to read a story to the bitter end.
But there is one thing the Japanese Fishermen must have learned from Kotaku Wamura: the
relevance of foresight in leadership.

This essay will be included as a new chapter in:

• Dürrenmatt's Laws (Designing Nuclear Plants according to Dürrenmatt's Laws)
• Castles of Grief (Chapter 1-22)
To illustrate the dominance of technological disasters in the northern hemisphere the Fukushima-
and Fudai-locations have been marked a the Google Map Castra Doloris and other Mausoleums of
the Mind , although the Fukushima tragedy may only be documented after the story has terminated
the worst possible sudden turn.

3 Dürrenmatt's Laws (Designing Nuclear Plants according to Dürrenmatt's Laws)