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The mystic stone at tsunami tide’s highest point that saved tiny Japanese village from the deadly wave

This four-foot high stone may look unremarkable, but it is credited with saving the lives of the population of Aneyoshi when the tsunami struck Japan.Carved into its weather-worn rock is a warning - ‘Do not build your homes below this point!’ – because they would be at risk from floods in a tsunami. The villagers obeyed the ancient warning and the tiny community of just 11 houses and 34 residents were rewarded with survival at a key geographical point.Obelisk was erected by survivors of previous tsunamis to warn future generationsAneyoshi, in the mountains of stricken Iwate Prefecture, bears a significant mark of the national natural disaster.Just 300ft down the hil from where the stone sits is a blue line painted on the road. It marks the point in Japan where the tsunami water reached its hightest point - 127.6 feet.The previous record height reached by flood waters in Japan was 125.3ft, which was also reached in Iwate Prefecture during a tsunami in 1896.It is Japan's history of tsunami's that led to these warning stones becoming a familiar sight along the coast of Japan as ancestors tried to warn future generations of the dangers. Some of the stones are 600 years old.The tsunami stones are warnings across generations, telling descendants to avoid the same suffering of their ancestors,' Itoko Kitahara, a specialist in natural disasters at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, told the New York Times.It was a tsunami in 1896 which killed 22,000 people that first convinced the people of Aneyoshi to move to their hilltop retreat and remain there.After a period of stability the population renewed itself and slowly began moving back down the hill towards the coast, but a then in 1933 another tsunami struck and left four survivors.It was after that disaster that the stone was erected and the village credits that with saving the village from a tsunami in 1960.'They knew the horrors of tsunamis, so they erected that stone to warn us,' said Tamishige Kimura, 64, Aneyoshi's leader. However, the magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11 which killed 29,000 people was the most destructive to strike Japan since the Jogan earthquake in 869. Although the village was unharmed, it still lost a family of four. Mihoko Aneishi, 36, and her three children were swept away in their car while in a neighbouring town.

 The Aneyoshi stone informs 'high dwellings ensure the peace and happiness of our descendants' but a scared history of disasters is clear in many of the place names. Nokoriya translates as Valley of Survivors while Namiwake means or Wave’s Edge.Many villages ignored the warnings on the stones, considering them relics of a bygone age, and built their houses closer to the coast. It proved a fatal mistake for so many.'As time passes, people inevitably forget, until another tsunami comes that kills 10,000 more people,' said author and tsunami expert Fumio Yamashita.No-one can forget the last disaster though and its effects continue to be felt.