There's no coincidence tsunami is a Japanese word.

Only a year ago Aon Bentham, an insurance company,  held a meeting discussing which places would be hit next with major natural disasters. They identified Indonesia, Chile and Japan as locations where an 8.0Mw quakes may hit next. Does this mean that Seismologists could have done more to predict the Japanese earthquake?

The March 11th 2011 earthquake which hit Honshu, Japan and measured at 8.9 Mw was preceded by a series of large foreshocks over the previous two days, beginning on March 9th with an earthquake of magnitude 7.2, occuring about 40 km from where Friday's earthquake hit. A further 3 earthquakes greater than magnitude 6 occured that same day. Knowing this I can't help but ask why was more prediction not implemented?

Information from the Japanese Meteorological Society about large earthquakes from the day before

Professor Peter Sammonds a seismologist at the Benfield Hazards Centre in London stated that "the problem with foreshocks is you never know if it is a foreshock or not until the larger quake comes". However, there are calculations and methods to predict earthquakes and after the 2004 Sumatran earthquake there was a paper published about the stress transfer along the fault line causing further ruptures, which correctly predicted a second major earthquake four months later. Sammonds admits that "the calculation is within our grasp, we just don't have the time to implement it within two days". Since the Sumatran earthquake occured in the same splay-fault system could there have been predictions and better defences built since 2004? In truth, despite being linked they are too far away for any of the stress transfer from the 2004 earthquake to have affected the section of fault line alongside Japan. 

Tsunami Wave heights as predicted by NOAA

As it is the Japanese people live with an ever-present expectation of natural disaster; floods, hurricanes, fires, and most of all earthquakes and the massive waves they can generate. Looking at the USGS damage predictions we see the damage itself is quite small, however they didn't predict the effect of the tsunami, and despite the buildings resisting the earthquake itself the tsunami  swept away all in it's path. Even if the major quake wasn't predicted from the foreshocks, you'd think in light of the knowledge that these thrust faults move under sea plates and often cause tsunamis, the Japanese would have been more inclined to evacuate the coastal areas. The Japanese have in fact built concrete walls along the coast to act as tsunami defence barriers and on Friday issued a warning 10 minutes before the wave struck to allow people time to evacuate to higher ground. There is evidence that these tsunami barriers and warning systems did work to some extent but it is still too early to say how effectve the warning system was.

Above The Tsunami covering the coast and breaking it's defences. Below: The Damage caused

Despite the damage and ongoing problems (like the melting nuclear reactors) Japan can't relax. This isn't the 'Big One' they've been waiting from, far from it. The most devastating earthquake would occur along the Nankai fault plane and would effect Tokyo massively. Since this is a completely seperate system the probablity of a quake occuring there has not changed and Japan may be in for much more turmoil in the future.