He set out to learn about earthquakes. His mentor became Katsuhiko Ishibashi, the outspoken head of the seismology division of the Japanese Construction Ministry’s International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineers. He learned that the dramatic increase in earthquake activity toward the close of the twentieth century was not only unusual but of very grave concern to scientists around the world. Of the thirteen largest Japanese earthquakes on record, five had taken place in the 1990s.

The first major quake of the century was in Tokyo, in 1923. Next, was an 8.9 quake in 1933. Thirteen years elapsed before the quake of 1946. Then, two years later came the next. Four years elapsed, then eight years elapsed, then fifteen years between quakes. But, something vicious began in the 1990s. On January 15, 1993, a 7.8 quake struck Kushiro, Hokkaido. On July 12, 1993, a 7.8 quake and tsunami devastated Okushiri-hima, Hokkaido. On October 1, 1994, an 8.1 quake again hit Hokkaido. On December 28 of that same year, there was a 7.5 quake in Hachinohe in northern Japan. Only nineteen days later, the costliest quake in human history struck Kobe in south central Honshu.

Ishibashi said, “Ito, we are heading for a holocaust. I fear that we Japanese must resign ourselves to our eventual destruction.” When Ito asked him to explain, the scientist told him, “Japan sits at a crucial juncture of major tectonic plates. It is located on the western end of the Pacific Plate. Touching the Pacific Plate directly at the border of Japan is the Eurasian Plate. Nearby is what is called the Philippine Sea Plate. The tendency of the Pacific Plate is to move westward and come under the Eurasian Plate. This causes violent upward thrusting and devastating damage to man-made structures near the lines where these plates intersect.

“There are several major fault lines directly under the city of Tokyo,” he said. “Worse for Tokyo is the expansion of the city for three or four hundred years into landfill areas constructed toward the Pacific. During severe earthquakes, the subsoil in a city like Kobe liquefies into mud, and there is no support left for above-ground structures. An earthquake/tsunami combination would inflict incalculable damage in a city like Tokyo.”

Ito listened in stunned silence as Ishibashi explained that a hundred forty thousand people were killed in the great Kanto earthquake that demolished Tokyo in 1923. Fires, he said, had reduced the city to what one account termed “a moonscape of ash and slag.” Experts predicted that another devastating quake, worse than Kanto, was due to strike at any time, with property damage in excess of one trillion dollars and loss of life in the millions. However, these same experts named another target first—Ito’s own area, Tokai.