I’ve always had a fascination with tsunamis. In my head (and in the movies) I always imagine this monster rip curl cresting over the city, but in reality I guess it starts out a lot more innocuously and builds from there. The videos from India a few years ago were the first real footage I’d seen of one, but the reality was so far off what I was expecting that I sort of wrote it off as atypical.
There have been a lot of helicopter mounted videos of this Japanese tsunami surging across the landscape but this is the first one I’ve seen at eye level. The videogapher is nuts.
It’s nearly impossible to tell how fast the water is rising except every time the camera pans back across the street you can see it’s come up another few feet in no time. I wish we had a video of it receding.
5 responses to “kessenuma tsunami”
This is a good ground level view, but he seemed to get a bit cautious in his retreat. (Imagine all the good video that didn’t survive. Perhaps much better.)
Yeah, I would think staring through a camera screen and turning around and noticing that the water is startlingly higher than it was 15 seconds earlier would make you nervous. That kind of volume wouldn’t take much to swipe you off your feet. (That’s harsh.)
The building floating down the street near the end is incredible.
I was surprised at this video (hope the link shows up):
http://www.weather.com/outlook/videos/tsunami-rushes-through-downtown-20002#19994
..which is in CA and shows the power of what seems like a relatively small wave…
LOL, that woman is having a crisis! Impressive what a tiny wave can do.
I’ll say this, if I ever own a boat and a tsunami is on the way, you’ll find me in my boat off shore where I can safely ride over the 3′ swell…. NOT standing on shore watching it crash into other boats with my hands on my head yelling ohmygod, ohmygod.
Just keep an eye out for whirlpools;
From the same town. How badly would you be panicking?