Tokyo Bay Home Demand to Sag After Quake Turned Land to Mud

Developers in Tokyo’s bayside neighborhoods, where apartments were built on reclaimed land, are halting sales after Japan’s earthquake turned some of the landfill into mud, shattered pipes and severed water supplies.

While most of Tokyo avoided major damage in the March 11 quake because of stringent building codes, in some parts of Tokyo Bay the magnitude-9 temblor triggered liquefaction, a phenomenon where soil loses its strength after violent shaking. The most affected suburb was Urayasu, one of only three residential areas in greater Tokyo where land prices rose last year, and the home of the Tokyo Disneyland resort.