"The agency's tsunami forecasts turned out to be a bit too big. I'd like to apologise for the prolonged alerts," Yasuo Sekita, the Meteorological Agency official in charge of earthquakes and tsunamis, told a news conference.

Authorities on Sunday ordered more than half a million people to evacuate seaside areas and predicted that the tsunami sparked by Chile's massive earthquake might top three metres (10 feet) by the time it reached Japan.

When other Pacific-Rim nations had sounded the all-clear, Japanese officials were still issuing warnings, as television stations provided non-stop live coverage with their cameras focused on the calm ocean.

When the tsunami arrived early on Sunday afternoon, it was just 30 centimetres (one foot) high. Waves up to 1.2 metres high later inundated some port areas, but caused no injuries or major property damage.

One disaster prevention expert, Hirotada Hirose, said he feared that "warnings by the disaster prevention authorities are losing credibility among the people."

Cautious to the end, Japan's Meteorological Agency maintained its last regional tsunami alerts until 10:15 am (0115 GMT) on Monday, after tens of thousands of people had spent the night in evacuation shelters.

But many Japanese would say authorities are right to err on the side of caution. Japan is a world leader in disaster preparedness, for good reason.

The island-nation of 128 million people, located at the intersection of several tectonic plates and dotted with active volcanoes, is hit by about 20 percent of the world's most powerful earthquakes.

In the last major quake, in Kobe in 1995, about 6,400 people died.

Greater Tokyo, with 35 million people, is waiting for "The Big One", a monster quake of the scale of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake that killed more than 140,000 people, many of whom were burnt to death in wooden houses.

When news came Sunday of the tsunami from Chile it revived bad memories: in 1960 a 9.5-magnitude earthquake in Chile, the largest on record, sent a tsunami across the Pacific that killed more than 140 people in Japan.

Experts were divided on the response to the latest quake, with some stressing that in the tsunami half a century ago the initial seawater surges were deceptively small but followed by far more deadly four-metre waves.

"Rather than focusing on the height of tsunamis, it's important to realise that tsunamis can be lethal even if they are 50 centimetres high. Most people could not keep their balance if a 50 centimetre tsunami hit," said Satoko Oki, assistant professor at Tokyo University's Earthquake Research Institute.

Ichiro Kawasaki, professor at Koyoto University's Research Centre for Earthquake Prediction, said "it is common to issue warnings of double the size of waves predicted, given that a disaster is a matter of life and death."

But Hirose, a psychologist and expert on disaster prevention at Tokyo Woman's Christian University, noted that Japan issued its highest-level tsunami warning for the first time since 1993 and kept it live long after a regional alert was lifted by the US-run Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.

"The challenge for disaster prevention authorities is to convince people their warnings are serious and to nudge them to evacuate," he said, pointing out that people were fishing and skateboarding along Kobe Bay Sunday.

"Issuing excessive tsunami warnings is seen as the behaviour of authorities who want to avoid criticism later if any damage occurs."

earlier related report
Japanese fishing town recalls horror of tsunami 50 years ago
Minami Sanriku, Japan (AFP) March 1, 2010 - When Chile's massive earthquake sent a tsunami racing towards Japan at the weekend, 79-year-old grandmother Matsuko Shiba knew to head for high ground, and for good reason.

Half a century ago a killer wave from the South American country destroyed the picturesque fishing town of Minami Sanriku, taking 41 lives there and, she recounted sadly, probably killing the baby she was carrying inside her.

"Just the other day I was thinking, 'Oh, it's been 50 years since then'," Shiba said as she sat huddled with her grandchildren and elderly friends in an evacuation centre in the town, which was rebuilt after the tsunami.

"It may have been a premonition," she added.

This time, Japan was able to breathe a sigh of relief after the tsunami from half-way across the world defied authorities' most dire warnings and did little damage in Japan other than to inundate some port areas.

But Shiba and her friends, survivors of the calamity 50 years ago, agreed that the risk of an occasional false alarm is no reason to lose respect for the destructive fury of mother nature.

When they heard of Chile's 8.8-magnitude quake Saturday, they said dark memories quickly came flooding back of the other Chilean quake, in 1960, that sent a killer tsunami their way.

Sitting next to Shiba on a thin blanket, her 80-year-old friend Mrs Yoshida remembered that terrible day: "The water in the cove disappeared and then came rushing back, surging like a high tide.

"It's like a huge wall of water coming towards you to swallow up everything," said Yoshida, who shyly declined to give her first name.

The elderly survivors said the 1960 tsunami reached heights of up to five metres (16 feet) in their town, which now has a population of 17,800, and which sits at the foot of jagged mountains in northern Miyagi prefecture.

"One of my neighbours who ran with her three-year-old baby strapped to her back later realised that the child had fallen off and been swept away as they struggled in the water," Shiba said. "It was terrible."

"I was pregnant at the time and had to hang from the edge of a wooden roof when the water and debris gushed into my house," said Shiba, adding: "The baby died just one day after she was born."

Across Japan's Pacific coast the death toll from the 1960 quake -- the strongest on record with a magnitude of 9.5 -- reached 142.

When Japanese authorities on Sunday issued their first major tsunami alert in more than 15 years, warning of waves that could top three metres, the survivors from 1960 were the first to head for the local evacuation centre.

As the elderly banded together, remembering the tragic history of their town, some of the school children complained that they were bored and missed their television shows.

Yoshida's nine-year-old grandson, munching on crackers provided as emergency food, grumbled that he was tired, but added more cheerfully: "The only thing that is good today is that I get to eat a lot of snacks."

Yoshida, watching her carefree grandson, said that her town 50 years ago received a lot of help from people across Japan.

Today, she said, "we also need to help people suffering from disasters overseas. And, we, the elderly, need to talk more about what we experienced to the younger people."

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook