Friday 13 March 2020

Nine Years Ago..............Terrifying Tsunami

If You Wonder What a Tsunami Looks Like ....

I came across THIS ARTICLE for the first time today and watched the video. The video was recorded nine years ago in Kesennuma city, on the banks of the Okawa river. 

The tsunami followed an earthquake which damaged a nuclear power station, on the coast north of Tokyo. I was in Hawaii at the time, living in a house on the coast and we had to evacuate because of fears of a tsunami. In Hawaii it was barely measurable, but in Kesennuma it was rather different.

Nothing much happens for the first couple of minutes, then the river starts flowing the wrong way. At 7 minutes the videographer retreats up the stairs of a block of flats. At 9 to 10 minutes debris starts appearing in the river and then it gets worse - a lot worse. The unrelenting power of the water is what struck me. That and the slow realisation that something horrible is happening. At what stage would I have realised that I had to get someplace safe - and what was safe?



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