www.ditl.org

Pictures really do tell a thousand words.

I know, my command has been doing a butt ton of Forecasting for that area (along with other Navy Weather and Oceanography detachments and commands, and the air force weather people). Its bad and I do meen bad, worse than Katrina and about on par with the Sumatra Quake. Luckly the radion readings AT the reactor site have gone down so hopefully that situation gets stabalized soon.

This video puts it into perspective for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b-2iByqHVI

What must have been going through the mind of the person shooting the video, presumably on top of a building, watching other buildings being swept away...

"Oh shit."

You have to remember, a cubic meter of water weighs literally a ton. A ten foot high wave weighs three tons per meter in width and depth. Even at a relatively low speed it's like being hit by a loaded large pickup truck every few seconds for minutes on end for every meter in width you present to the wave. Imagine 20 loaded F250 pick up trucks running into the side of a house at thirty miles an hour. Imagine that happening every two seconds for five minutes straight. That's what a tsunami will do to a building.

The killer for humans though is the debris. The wave itself doesn't usually kill. It's when it slams you into a wall or a tree or you get caught between a car it's picked up and a boulder.

Tyyr wrote: The killer for humans though is the debris. The wave itself doesn't usually kill. It's when it slams you into a wall or a tree or you get caught between a car it's picked up and a boulder.

Indeed, my Geography Tutor equated it with jumping in a cement mixer.