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Local Earthquake Engineer Assessing Japan Quake Damage

WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- The CEO of an engineering firm is in the thick of recovery efforts in Japan after experiencing the huge quake himself last week.

Dr. Kit Miyamoto, of West Sacramento-based Miyamoto International, was on a train in Tokyo with his family when the 9.0-magnitude quake struck. The train the family was riding on came to a halt, forcing them to hike overnight.

Dr. Miyamoto sent his family back to Sacramento but chose to stay to help recovery efforts, saying he feels partially responsible for the loss of life.

"We let society, the country and the world down," Dr. Miyamoto said.

Miyamoto was in Japan to make a presentation at an earthquake engineering consequence and was asked to help assess the damage in Sendai, one of the regions that suffered a colossal loss of life when tsunamis flattened whole towns near the coastline.

Japan experiences strong earthquakes more frequently than many parts of the world, but even building structures to withstand a 7.0-magnitude quake proved ineffective for Friday's temblor, Miyamoto said.

Existing sea walls couldn't deter the devastating tsunamis, he added, and the chance of a wave-generating aftershock remains high for the next few days. Many of the buildings in Sendai survived the earthquake, but fell to the power of the surging water.

Staying in the area will help determine what can be done to protect future disasters, Miyamoto said, "to understand what worked and what didn't work."

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