Voice of America: Tsunami Warning Systems, Lessons from Japan

Japan is one of the most well-prepared countries in the world to deal with the threat of a tsunami.

Warning systems are in place, and concrete sea walls wrap around much of the coastline. But nature's wrath on Friday was just too big for the man-made protective measures, raising the question, what went wrong?

VOA's Kate Woodsome reached out to Costas Synolakis, a tsunami expert with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California, to find out.