You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
The Most Insane Japanese Tsunami Video Yet
2011-03-29
Posted by:Threase Omurt5624

#19  
Posted by: Phuting and Company7064   2011-03-29 22:34  

#18  If it is, that's also the case at Sendai, phil.

Just about all the tapes I've seen look like this (but not as scary).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2011-03-29 21:28  

#17  Yes it doesn't look like a wave, more like a raised sea level
Posted by: European Conservative   2011-03-29 21:26  

#16  Some estuaries and other coastal configurations funnel and intensify tsunamis. Esentially the volume of water piles up in a narrowing gap. That may be the case here.
Posted by: phil_b   2011-03-29 20:59  

#15  Definitely scary. Actually I didn't think that tsunamis would be like that.

Starts out like a wave you could walk away from until you realize that even running won't do.
Posted by: European Conservative   2011-03-29 20:53  

#14  How long did it go on, is what I want to know? The water is still coming strong when the video ends. I'd like to see it go to the end and then see what the backwash was like.

Also, the one part where the guys speak, they say "Oi, oi, hito!" and point out in the water. This means "hey, a person." But I can't make it out. But I keep wondering how many people were trapped in those cars or in the boats, etc. The only other people you can make out here are on the roof of the other building.
Posted by: DJ Curtis C   2011-03-29 20:47  

#13  Jeezus, it just keeps coming and coming! What did it finally get to - 20, 30 feet high? More?

I'd probably stop filming long enough to bend over and kiss my ass goodbye.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2011-03-29 19:44  

#12  And then came the fires at Kesennuma port.
Posted by: Jack Thuter4002   2011-03-29 13:29  

#11  Looks like a 30' surge above sealevel. Rose enough to take out the docks then rose another 20' around the tall buildings just beyond the docks.
Posted by: Jack Thuter4002   2011-03-29 13:15  

#10  If you look at the "before and after" satellite photos those concrete structures are the only things left.
Posted by: tipover   2011-03-29 12:32  

#9  And for us on the East Coast - The Canary Islands and Cumbra Vieja.
Posted by: Hellfish   2011-03-29 12:25  

#8  The light first dawned for me a long time ago, with a Jacques Cousteau program where he had divers descend down the undersea wall of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. It's a 32,500 ft. tall mountain, and most of it is underwater.

That wall was pretty flat and straight down, and is basically a retaining wall for that ginormous mountain. Even as a kid I could tell that if that wall "went", something very, very bad was going to happen.

The Hawaiian islands have already had several such collapses, creating massive tsunamis, but they have also been on the receiving end of tsunamis as well, from Japan, Alaska and even Chile.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2011-03-29 09:57  

#7  I kept imagining what I would do if I were down in that parking lot. I thought about getting on top of the parking structure and then getting on top of that small two story building.
Yeah, I'd be safe there...
Nope, not really.

Lesson: pay attention to warnings. Last minute heroics get you dead.
Posted by: Fat Bob Spusoth1650   2011-03-29 09:46  

#6  Yes, sooner or later Yellowstone will blow again, plus the New Madrid fault will go again. What exactly causes sand geysers anyway? Ugh.
Posted by: Jefferson   2011-03-29 07:00  

#5  Sure, Crospatch, that'd be fun here (Vankong), but wait when the Yellowstone caldera blows!

Phil_b, The last two megatsunamis were pretty close, ~1540BCE and ~720BCE. We've been lucky for 2700 years.
Posted by: twobyfour   2011-03-29 05:36  

#4  I thought subby oversold it in the first minute, but it just got worse and worse. I was wondering if that concrete building was going to go by the end. Wow.
Posted by: Mizzou Mafia   2011-03-29 05:36  

#3  And to think this is *exactly* what is going to happen some day along the coast of Washington, Oregon and Vancouver. They are sitting on exactly the same kind of fault and it has been about 300 years since the last quake of almost exactly this same size.

Posted by: crosspatch   2011-03-29 04:55  

#2  It makes the Boxing Day tsunami videos look like a minor inconvenience.

Note the multi-storey building in the center that withstood the tsunami.

I keep thinking about the geomorphological evidence for tsunamis 10 to a 100 times bigger than this one along many of the world's coastlines. And their re-occurence at seemingly regular intervals.
Posted by: phil_b   2011-03-29 02:56  

#1  That is a frightening video. The relentless power of the sea pouring into the town, taking down most everything in its path is unreal. I wonder what the fellow with the video camera was thinking as the water rose higher and higher toward his vantage point.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2011-03-29 02:26  

00:00