I wonder if that had been the case if the wind had blown in another direction at the time, towards Tokyo, instead of mostly the open sea.

I also think it's difficult to come to conclusions in seeing this in an isolated way. Everything was in chaos and much destroyed because of the tsunami, surely that delayed communications, and assessment of the 'real' situation?

Sometimes when I read about the history of all that, and all the talking about, I get the feeling like the commentariat views this like a clean room laboratory exercise. Like in a model, this happened, what to do now?

Chaotic reality doesn't work like that.