Tokyo's anti-flooding sewers are not as "miraculous" as rumored
Tokyo's underground G-Cans sewer system is hailed as a flood-prevention engineering marvel, but experts warn it is not as "miraculous" as rumoured.
Báo Khoa học và Đời sống•10/10/2025
Hidden 50 meters underground, G-Cans is a giant sewer network that the Japanese liken to a "Sacred Temple" that protects Tokyo from flooding. The system, which includes five water intake wells, a tunnel more than 6 km long and a pressure tank the size of a football field, was built at a cost of up to 3 billion USD.
Since operating in 2006, G-Cans have helped Tokyo avoid hundreds of floods, saving more than $1 billion in economic damage. During super typhoon Hagibis in 2019, the system worked at full capacity, saving thousands of homes from being swept away by water.
However, Japanese experts assert that G-Cans is not an "absolute shield" as many people think. Daijiro Sugama, an expert at the Edogawa River Office, warned that the system would only be effective when combined with dikes and other regulating reservoirs. Some scientists say the operating and maintenance costs of G-Cans are so high that it would be difficult for any other country to copy this model.
“G-Cans are a technical marvel, but not a miracle against natural disasters,” experts emphasize, helping to reveal the true limits of the Tokyo “Shrine”. Dear readers, please watch more videos : Iris scanning tool to verify human | VTV24
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