Japanese people have made strenuous effort to control nature to their own advantage.
In1947, Typhoon Kathleen affected the Kanto area in Japan and caused severe damage. Since then, people have recognized the importance of river banks and the need for dams, so they started building dams all over Japan. When Typhoon Vera, or Isewan Typhoon, occurred in 1954, more than 5,000 people were injured or killed by the disaster. Therefore, the government decided to launch the meteorological satellite ‘Himawari’ into space to get to know the paths of typhoons more accurately.
However, in recent years, the weather conditions bring about drastic changes, more than we could have imagined. So, it is expected that people should change further. But, I'm afraid that people have worked too much, trying to control nature.
Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, said, "We want to be satisfied and live in comfort, but nature throws us into difficulties and labors, not settling for comfort and misspent satisfaction. It teaches us how to overcome trouble, and we learn lessons from that." I’m deeply affected by these words now.
We have been through ordeals of nature over and over. Through trial and error, we have built civil engineering facilities for flood control and water utilization. Even though we have had many failures and sacrifices, we keep going on. However, nature poses us a greater challenge to solve.
It is not the end when we make river improvement facilities such as dams and dikes once. Daily maintenance is also required. Moreover, we need to rebuild them from time to time when they cause environmental changes. No human force can prevail against the power of nature, and we should keep up with changes in nature. Those Facilities are built by humans. We built them to protect our lives from natural disasters and damage. They are, so to speak, a bridge between the changing Earth and us, that help to live normally.
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