After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall (Nancy Kress) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

APRIL 2014

In the complex network of faults in the Pacific Seismic Network, a thrust fault two hundred miles off the shore of Japan abruptly moved, as had happened before. The seabed deformed, vertically displacing an enormous volume of water. A huge wave rose on the ocean, long and low enough that an oil tanker barely noticed when it passed beneath its hull. As the wave raced toward shore, the shallower water both slowed and raised it. By the time the tsunami broke on Tokyo, the highest wave crested at ninety-four feet of water, smashing and inundating the city as well as the country far inland.

This had been predicted for a long time as a possibility for Tokyo. Only a few years earlier, it had happened south of that ancient city, with devastating results. Not the prediction, not the unfairness of being struck twice within a few years, not Japan’s excellent tsunami-warning system—none of it lessened the horrific destruction.