when a known dangerous highway problem gets ignored by government officials until someone is killed.* The Pacific has had several tsunamis in the recent past, so a warning network is in place. Given the "Pacific Ring of Fire", this isn't unreasonable. Other areas are less likely to have the big earthquakes ("no one has died - yet"), so it's harder to get the various governments interested in spending even modest amounts of money. Perhaps that will change now that we've seen just how deadly tsunamis can be.

*Seymour Cray of Cray Supercomputer fame died as a result of an auto accident about a mile from my home. That interstate interchange was very dangerous and had been the scene of may serious accidents, but it wasn't until a world famous man like Cray was killed that the state bothered to do anything about it.