
Video of tsunami in Japan - thornjm
http://video.l3.fbcdn.net/cfs-l3-snc6/81489/34/1605260179420_2624.mp4?oh=ac31b4d8738221641ba490396dc19636&oe=4D7F9F00&l3s=20110313100648&l3e=20110315101648&lh=0a6cfa5eeaecd6dc12abf
======
ajays
Color me educated. I used to think that a tsunami was a giant wave which would
splash, and then it's gone. I didn't know/realize how slow-moving but MASSIVE
this was.

So what happens to all this water? Does it eventually go back into the sea the
way it came in? Or is this the default sea-level now?

~~~
icegreentea
From the wiki article, by the time a large tsunami reaches the shore, it has a
wavelength of ~20km, taking ~1-2 minutes to reach the peak of the wave.

And yeah, in the long term, most of the water will go back out to sea (or
evaporate off). Of course, areas that were below sea-level before hand, will
now be big ponds until they're drained, but by and large, the water will
withdraw (which does extra damage!).

~~~
anabis
> areas that were below sea-level before hand Some areas became below sea-
> level _after_ the quake. The land sank a maximum of 70cm.

------
subpixel
Reminds me a little of this from 2004, where the photographer and his gf or
wife _just_ seem to make it out alive:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbq412haY1c>

Scary, scary stuff.

------
51Cards
And somehow we think we are masters of the planet. When nature's true forces
come to bear there isn't much we have ever built that stands in the way.

Here's to wishing all those that survived a speedy recovery and my condolences
to those who know people who didn't make it.

~~~
skeletonjelly
To be fair, theres nothing of nature's that stands in nature's way. It ruins
it's own shit too. It's all entropy right?

~~~
salemh
Can't find the source from months back, but, us humans were constantly trying
to stop all forest fires in near-populated area's, which were needed (by
nature) to clear area's for other vegetation which can't grow in certain over
abundances of tree species.

~~~
salemh
Was that too simplified? Sources. Basically, soil enrichment, the "choking" of
other plant vegetation if fires do not occur at intervals, etc. Its the same
argument of overpopulation of deers = starvation of deers, since we've taken
out the natural predators of wolves in many area's, hunting is a necessity.

<http://www.springerlink.com/content/q8755xw004285060/>
<http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/46.html>

<http://www.infoplease.com/spot/forestfire1.html> "Forest fires can have
beneficial effects. Charcoal enriches soil, and some plant species flourish in
the wake of conflagrations. The cones of the jack pine tree, for instance,
will not release their seeds unless exposed to intense heat. Sequoia or
Douglas fir trees grow best in open sunlight areas, such as those cleared by
fire.

Natural fires also remove dead wood and tangled brush. For these reasons, the
Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers 17% of
all U.S. forest reserves, often allows fires, especially when started by
lightning, to burn in carefully monitored areas."

Edit: The Parent (up deus) post stated "Nature ruins its own shit right?" not
necessarily if you look at the world as an entire ecosystem. I guess I am
confused as to its upvotes, when it means absolutely nothing.

------
tmsh
Although a very serious situation, couldn't help but note Paul Kedrosky's
observation:

<http://twitter.com/#!/pkedrosky/status/46604765890752512>

------
geuis
I wonder what happened to the poor man trapped at the end of the video...

------
thornjm
Whole buildings moving at ~4:30 in.

~~~
mmaunder
Was going to post the same - it gets really bad at 4:30. Cleaning up this mess
is going to cost several GDP's.

~~~
chaz
$35bn apparently

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870402750457619...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704027504576198853727739640.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLETopStories)

~~~
jonknee
That doesn't cover any of the damage from the tsunami or radiation, which
should both add quite a bit. The government's also on the hook for a lot of
the damage to residential buildings (some of which we saw float by in the
linked video).

------
znt
I wonder if an artificial tsunami of the same scale can be achieved my setting
off a nuclear bomb underwater? This seems to be more damaging (infrastructure-
wise) than a direct nuke hit.

~~~
janzer
According to wikipedia scale an 8.8 magnitude earthquake has approximately the
same energy release as a 288 megaton nuke. Since the largest nuclear bomb ever
was 100 megaton and a 35km radius for the zone of total destruction, direct
bombing is almost certainly more damaging.

~~~
jarek
I (morbidly) wonder if it would be possible to set off a tsunami with just the
explosion, without necessarily the ground movement. It would seem to me that a
lot of the earthquake's energy release would go into shaking the ground.

Anyway, the story of that bomb is interesting too:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba>

~~~
rbanffy
You could, perhaps, trigger an underwater quake by bombing a fault zone with a
large enough nuke (or sequence them as to compound the shock)

------
incredimike
It went from zero to complete chaos in about 3 minutes. That is just nuts.

Do not mess with water.

------
msie
The beginning of the flood looks innocuous enough, but it keeps on coming...

------
Joakal
More tsunamis for the morbidly curious:

<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Megatsunami>

Record stands at 524m high.

~~~
duck
Just to be clear, a _mega_ tsunami is not usually caused by earthquakes, but
rather other events and are very rare.

Normal tsunami: <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tsunami>

------
light3
I like how the water level rises from the beginning to the end, at the start
there's just a few cars moving a little and you're like "this isn't so bad",
and then at the end water is gushing in with cars and buildings rolling around
in a cacophony of madness, even the camera man has retreated to well above
water level at this point.

------
tarr11
What is the possibility that the guy driving the car at the beginning outraced
the tsunami?

------
16s
Wow. This is just horrific. My heart goes out to Japan. Hang in there guys!

------
BoppreH
Opera displays a Blank Page, Chrome attempts to play the video with no
controls and Firefox tries do download the mp4 file.

What on earth is going on here?

EDIT: it was just taking too damn long. Could be my connection, though.

~~~
halfasleep
Transcoded to Flash video. I'll keep it up unless my host has a problem about
copyright...
[http://deathbycomputers.co.uk/crapandstuff/1605260179420_262...](http://deathbycomputers.co.uk/crapandstuff/1605260179420_2624.swf)

~~~
yuhong
Why not transcode to WebM?

------
lkrubner
The video is now gone. Does anyone know of another way to find it?

------
ernestipark
I remember when I was really little my dad telling me that water was so much
scarier than fire because it can't be stopped... Looks like proof.

------
tenaciousJk
Youtubed: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzmRyyAbBIg>

Now removed :/

~~~
chaz
Dead already.

"This video contains content from TV Asahi Corporation, who has blocked it on
copyright grounds."

------
chaz
Is there a link to this video with a player/context? Direct link to the .mp4
is unusual and somewhat hard to share.

~~~
tenaciousJk
<http://reut.rs/eTSZoM>

------
aashpak1
I wonder how do insurance companies survive such natural disasters?

------
dakotasmith
What part of Japan is this?

~~~
openbear
Same video appears on BBC ...

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12722026>

"Footage has emerged of Friday's tsunami sweeping through Kesennuma City in
Miyagi Prefecture, north-eastern Japan."

------
maeon3
Mirror:

[http://www.machinesentience.com/miscvideos/amazing_video_of_...](http://www.machinesentience.com/miscvideos/amazing_video_of_tsunami_in_japan_2011_03_10.mp4)

Not sure why anyone would want to censor this sort of thing off of youtube, my
guess is they are trying to Streisand Effect themselves.

------
georgieporgie
I chuckled a bit when the parked cars started bobbing, then made their way to
the 'street' and floated away as if driving off to work. Everything else was
horrifying.

------
rubashov
What was wrong with the term "Tidal Wave"? It looks like a huge tide rolling
in.

~~~
pokjhnboi
They are nothing to do with tides.

Tsunami means harbor wave which is a good description - at sea they are almost
unnoticeable - it'sonly when the water is concentrated on a shore - or in a
harbor that they have such an effect

~~~
rubashov
Not really getting the "harbor" connection. And it still looks like a big
surge tide rolling in.

~~~
jarek
It only becomes a visible problem in harbours (or otherwise in shallow
waters).

It looks like a tidal wave in the sense that it's a lot of water moving in a
given direction. The mechanism causing it is not the same at all, so the name
tidal wave is misleading.

~~~
mixmax
As an example a friend of mine was on a boat during the massive 2004 tsunami,
but since he was a few miles off the coast where the water was deep he didn't
even notice the tsunami sweeping under his boat. Once it hit land it did
massive damage.

------
njharman
other day friend quipped "Japanese are so smart designing quake proof bdgs".
seems they forgot the tsunami thing after.

~~~
pokjhnboi
They didn't forget - a Tsunami is a block of water a meter high and several km
deep moving at 800km/h.

That's a few BILLION tons of water moving at the speed of a jet aircraft - try
designing against that.

~~~
btilly
Important first correction. The wave moves at that speed. The water itself
does not. It mostly bobs up and down slightly.

Important second correction. The height of the tsunami when it hits shore is
_not_ the height of the tsunami when it is out at sea. All waves, tsunamis
included, rise up when the bottom of the water starts to compress the bottom
of the wave, compressing its energy into a smaller volume.

With these corrections, a tsunami out at sea is a wave a few cm high moving at
800 km/h with the water barely moving, but with the _whole_ water column
moving. It is therefore entirely conceivable that a well-built dike could
withstand such a wave.

Obviously such dikes were not in place this time, but the feasibility of
building them has been investigated. By Japanese scientists no less. See
<http://www.pwri.go.jp/eng/ujnr/joint/37/paper/13kato.pdf> for one paper on
the topic.

~~~
brazzy
There actually were such dikes in some places, you can see them overflowing in
some of the videos.

The thing is, you have to decide how high a dike you're willing to pay for,
which is a cost vs. remaining risk tradeoff. The risk of the 5th strongest
quake ever recorded occuring right before your piece of the coast was
apparently considered acceptable - Hindsight always wins.

