Anatomy of a Tsunami - BBC 1

[Rob Wilson]

Just been watching this documentary, and what struck me most was the difference between the imagery that eye-witness accounts offered up and what it actually looked like as seen by camera footage of it hitting.

For instance in Indonesia a young woman tells about 'The huge wall of Black water' that thundered through the streets towards her house. The footage showed more like a swirling brackish tide filled with debris. It reached maybe 8 ft high. Don't get me wrong it did horrendous damage, held an emormous amount of energy and killed thousands in the town - but what she described was more than reality.

IN thialand there were I witnesses discussing the water going out before the tsunami hit. Frequent referances to 'the sea draining away' and 'all the water just disappeared', yet the camera footage showed that only about 2-300m of sea bead was exposed, the water was still there beyond that, just a lot more shallow than normal - 2 Patrol boats could be seen approx 6-700m off-shore and still having enough water to stay upright.

Then were descriptions of 'a huge tidal wave' that 'thundered towards' the eye-witness's. The Footage showed a thin white line on the horizon, this gradually increased in thickness until it reached the patrol boats when it becane obvious it was twice their height. It then hit the beach and was at most 20-25ft tall (the footage was shot from the roof of a 3 storey building and the water reached halfway up). Again, I'm not saying it wasn't a big thing (20-25ft of water stretching the length of the horizon is a shitload of water), just not has visually impressive as eye-witness accounts make it sound. It also wasn't moving that fast overland 30-40mph compared to the 100+mph in the sea.

And one last part - spuedo-science to the rescue. There was a 5 minute account of how one man just 'knew' something was going to happen. He is an Elephant mahout and the magical properties of animals allowed them to know something was wrong... oh wait, the magical properties of animals let one elephant know something was wrong. Yep much hullaballo was made of this one elephant playing up, breaking it's chain and running off into the jungle hours before the tsunami struck... yet nothing said about the fact the rest of the herd were calm and untroubled.
Selective evidence at work.

[2000AD]

I caught bit of it.

I laughed a little at the Tsunami Warning Centre not having a way to contact the right people.

[Rob Wilson]

I caught bit of it.

I laughed a little at the Tsunami Warning Centre not having a way to contact the right people.

The Pacific one? Yeah, it could only issue warnings on Pacific Basin Tsuna,i's so never issued a warning to Indonesia or Thailand - some form of red-tape protocols.

[2000AD]

I caught bit of it.

I laughed a little at the Tsunami Warning Centre not having a way to contact the right people.

The Pacific one? Yeah, it could only issue warnings on Pacific Basin Tsuna,i's so never issued a warning to Indonesia or Thailand - some form of red-tape protocols.

aaaahhhhh .... didn't see that bit.

[Broomstick]

To be fair, when the Pacific warning system woke up to what was happening/going to happen a number of people did at least try to contact authorities in places likes Indonesia and Thailand, but between not knowing who to call and the bureaucracies in place the effort became futile.

[Rob Wilson]

To be fair, when the Pacific warning system woke up to what was happening/going to happen a number of people did at least try to contact authorities in places likes Indonesia and Thailand, but between not knowing who to call and the bureaucracies in place the effort became futile.

In the end, they broke Protocol and transmitted a Bulletin worldwide about the Tsunami risk. Unfortunately this was 50 minutes after the Earthquake and 45 minutes after Indonesia was flattened. It was 5 minutes before it would hit Thailand, but the Thai Authorities ignored it as it wasn't a warning from the correct authorities.

[Trytostaydead]

Also to be fair, in the survivors POV, what they saw must've been outworldly and horrific. There probably was a noticeable withdrawl of water, and to the people on the ground, the wall of water coming at them must've been horrific. C'mon, if it was just swirling water as the cameras show, there shouldn't have been that many people who couldn't swim.

Watch some of those tsumani tapes taken by people on the ground in the lesser hit areas. It hits hard and rises very fast. I can only imagine what it was like in the less developed and harder hit areas.

[Rob Wilson]

Also to be fair, in the survivors POV, what they saw must've been outworldly and horrific. There probably was a noticeable withdrawl of water, and to the people on the ground, the wall of water coming at them must've been horrific. C'mon, if it was just swirling water as the cameras show, there shouldn't have been that many people who couldn't swim.

You can be a strong swimmer and still drown in 2-3ft of flood water. The pressure of the water hitting your legs is incredible and once you're down you are swept away, battered with debris and htting any submerged structures. Flood waters don't have to be deep to be dangerous.

That said if you read what I wrote the Flood waters were at least 12-25ft deep, that's damned deep. I was juxtaposing the images created by eyewitness accounts with reality - the fact is that the accounts conjure up visions of water hundreds of feet high. This wasn't the case.

Watch some of those tsumani tapes taken by people on the ground in the lesser hit areas. It hits hard and rises very fast. I can only imagine what it was like in the less developed and harder hit areas.

Did you read the OP? I was comparing eyewitness accounts to what was filmed, therefore I have seen the Films of it hitting. The Water slows down hugely when it hits land from 100mph to around 25-30 mph tops. It was the force and volume of the water that did the damage not it's excessive speed. The only time it looked faster was when it went up narrowish streets as the confinement meant it would go faster.

[Rob Wilson]

While I was out tonight it was reported that another Earthquake of a large magnitude happened in the exact same area. At least this time people are moving to high ground straight away.