According to Teruyuki Kato, the project's leader, this arrangement can measure a buoy's vertical motion with an accuracy of a few centimetres, which will pick up dangerous tsunamis in the open ocean where they are mere ripples on the surface (they rear up into killerwaves only when they reach the shallows).
' Watching all those cars headed so purposely in one direction that was straight out of one of those thrillers about earthquakes or tidal waves or killer hurricanes.