Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,607
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    ArlyDude
    Newest Member
    ArlyDude
    Joined

9.0 Earthquake strikes Japan


Recommended Posts

New video running from Miyagi(sp?) on Today Show. It shows why the death toll is going to be horriffic. On one side of the shot you see an absolute wall of water descending on the city. On the other side of shot, you see cars driving normally along a roadway, unawares of what is about to sweep over them. Multiply that times thousands of situations and the death toll when the news finally gets around to talking about it honestly is going to be hard to comprehend.

Also the population of that part of Japan is even more elderly than Japan as a whole. Based on some of the videos the first waves arrived 11 minutes after the tsunami warning sirens blew.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 1.6k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

New video running from Miyagi(sp?) on Today Show. It shows why the death toll is going to be horriffic. On one side of the shot you see an absolute wall of water descending on the city. On the other side of shot, you see cars driving normally along a roadway, unawares of what is about to sweep over them. Multiply that times thousands of situations and the death toll when the news finally gets around to talking about it honestly is going to be hard to comprehend.

Is there a link to see this video your talking about?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well now that I have seen more video and photos, the tsunami damage looks to be as bad as anything in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

There was one pic of a wrecked but still standing three story concrete building. It was completely gutted, and on the top of it was debris and..a demolished car-sitting there on the roof of a three story building like it had been parked there. Even if you had made it to the roof of this three story building, you would have been washed away. Unbelievable.

I remember watching some show on tsunamis and a small Japanese city that had built a 'tsunami wall' with gates to protect the main part of the town-when the sirens went off, they would rush to get the gates closed. I think if I remember correctly the town was hit in the tsunami of 1933(close to/ the same area as this one), and was one of the worst hit towns then.

Anyone else remember seeing this/knowing about this town and it's 'wall'? I wonder what happened to it with this tsunami?

*edit-well I looked it up and think it was Taro, now part of Miyako, and it's wall was apparently not enough to protect it from this tsunami. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well now that I have seen more video and photos, the tsunami damage looks to be as bad as anything in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Of course the damage isn't as "spread out" as the Indian Ocean tsunami was, but certainly the hardest hit places in Japan were pretty much wiped out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep-- totally.

Video falls short conveying any natural disaster, but the disconnect is biggest with earthquakes. Video just doesn't capture it, because so much of it is what you feel-- the motion and the energy. It is very strange and scary.

You both are so correct. Being in a earthquake really scrambles the senses. All your life the ground has been a constant. It does not move and provides a stable platform to which your sense of balance and location is tied. Suddenly what was always a constant turns in a noisy, messy variable. Your inner ear and your sight gets conflicting signals. You hear sounds that defie description. In short you are in sensory overload and your brain cannot find a logical center to find itself. The fight or flee is turned on but there is no where to go to alleviate it. You can see it in one of the vids that was posted earlier. An elderly lady crouched down in front of a garage. Her eyes are dialated to the max and you can tell she wants to be anywhere but where she is. But she is trapped because there is no where to go to get away from it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tsunami mitigation-

No stopping a tsunami, but the Japanese have walls and gates that shut, that limit the damage to urban centers from tsunamis. Apparently the walls weren't quite big enough for the massive tsunami generated.

I heard the wall in Crescent City, CA limited damage when the tsunami reached there, the waterfront area alone suffered serious damage..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tsunami mitigation-

No stopping a tsunami, but the Japanese have walls and gates that shut, that limit the damage to urban centers from tsunamis. Apparently the walls weren't quite big enough for the massive tsunami generated.

...

I wonder how many people did not evacuate because they thought they were safe behind some of these walls?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1,300 probably is only the tip of the iceberg as well, with such a big disaster it'll probably be a while before we have a true picture of whats happened death wise.

Just unreal!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which specific video Scott? Most of what I saw I watched yesterday.

This just sucks...

There was one shot of an area that looked like it was protected by a seawall and the wave just pushed right over the wall and into some city. Another video was a shot of what looked like a 20ft wall of water passing through some congested city. I bet we start seeing some pretty powerful video. It was video that I haven't seen, anyways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which specific video Scott? Most of what I saw I watched yesterday.

This just sucks...

There was one shot of an area that looked like it was protected by a seawall and the wave just pushed right over the wall and into some city. Another video was a shot of what looked like a 20ft wall of water passing through some congested city. I bet we start seeing some pretty powerful video. It was video that I haven't seen, anyways.

When I went to 'BBC home' and that video was the first thing that popped up-with the tsunami going over the seawall, taking cars and ships with it.

Also the car on top of the three story building is in the MSNBC photo gallery 'Japan Day Three' photo 12.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...