3.11 Disaster

　　A memorable day for Japanese came around again. March 11th in 2011 would be handed down as the day of one of the most disastrous earthquakes, followed by the huge tsunami, which claimed more than 15000 lives including related deaths and more than 4000 people are still not accounted for. We have to bolster disaster-prevention countermeasures. It would be the desire of the people who weren't able to survive the disaster. Literature and archaeological studies revealed that Japan has suffered enormous natural disasters repeatedly since ancient times. It's naturally lamentable, but can we not say that the very effort to survive or minimize the damage by the disasters with the collected folk wisdom is the test of the level of the nation's civilization.

(Vocabulary)
unforgettable  (すばらしさ・美しさなどの面で) 忘れられない
memorable 記憶に残る, 忘れられない
the collected wisdom of many generations いく世代にもわたって蓄えられた知恵
folk wisdom  (受け継がれる) 庶民の知恵