If you chanced to visit Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s website in mid-April, you probably saw a note regarding the utility's tsunami e no taisaku (津波への対策, tsunami policy). Clearly it had been written in more innocent times. Relax, it said in effect. The policy was iron-clad. It rested on painstaking evaluations of kako ni hassei shita tsunami no kiroku (過去に発生した津波の記録, records of past tsunami) and on simulations of jishingaku de sōtei sareru saidaikyu no tsunami (地震学で想定される最大級の津波, what seismology regards as the worst possible tsunami). Accordingly, Toden (東電, Tepco) anzensei wo kakunin shimasu (安全性を確認します, confirms the safety) of the facility.

Before it was finally sakujo sareta (削除された, deleted) it had become profoundly ironic — hōshanō (放射能, radiation) had been leaking from the shattered Fukushima Daiichi Genshiryoku Hatsudensho (福島第一原子力発電所, Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant) for weeks.

A recurring phrase in the government's and Tepco's postdisaster repertoire describes the tsunami as sōtei wo koeru (想定を超える, beyond what anyone had reason to expect). This is either blatant lying or deplorable ignorance. Waves no less awesome have surged here in the past. They are few and far between, certainly, but hardly inconceivable.