As for a tsunami expert commenting on the video… I’m not exactly an “expert” but I studied under a geologist who is, so I know a thing or two. There’s not a whole lot to comment on here, except that you’re seeing multiple tsunami waves, and at a couple of points you can see water rushing back out from one of the initial waves. This is interesting because the receding water is going to be partly trapped by the sea wall, meaning subsequent waves get piled higher.

The sea walls are having a bigger defensive effect than you might imagine, though… the way the water piles up with each subsequent wave isn’t typical. The sea walls really are having a significant impact. Without them, the water would have been up to the point where the guy was standing much, much sooner; within the first two or three surges I imagine, if not the first.

There are videos from the 2004 tsunami that are worth watching if you want to better understand how these work; it looks a lot different without the sea walls. One of the terrifying things you don’t see in the Japan videos that you see in the 2004 videos is that before the first wave hits, the water will recede from the beach potentially hundreds of feet (which makes sense if you think about the magnitude of the waves; think about regular waves hitting the beach and how the water recedes and scale it up big time). If you don’t know why that’s happening (as most people didn’t in 2004), you may be tempted to walk out far from the shore… which many people did (you can see them doing this in some of the videos).

Make that two metres high, over and over and over, until you’re 10 meters up, and the houses are floating away.

Does anyone know what he says (in Japanese) in the middle of the video?

I would absolutely, without a doubt, rather be several miles out than in some mooring hole, even if I had warning. That is the general rule, head out to sea immediately after an earthquake.

The real problem with staying put is that there is just so much mass you are up against once it hits shallow water. When considering hurricane preparations for example, you have to actually calculate the force against your boat and hurricane tackle, adjusting it accordingly with your setup. Tandem anchors, swivels, tying to mangroves etc. The factors with a Hurricane mostly have to do with windage (Things on your boat that cause drag) and of course current.

With a tsunami however, the actual force of the current is just astronomical when calculating the loads needed to withstand a hit. Your anchor rode is already pushing its limit, then you suddenly have a 6 foot increase in water height. That would do you in. You can actually see all the boats in the above video being popped off their rigs once that tremendous volume of water hits.

You have to be really lucky and quick thinking to make it through a tsunami sitting in a marina like that.

I saw another woman interviewed who was on the third floor of a block of flats with her daughter, when the water came up she got dragged out of the window and she still hasn’t found her daughter.

Even the people teaching tsunami drills didn’t realise that some of their safe rallying spots would be underwater.

Check out the link I posted earlier in this thread – the sea walls were 10m high.

“Drill ship Chikyu (57087 gt, built 2005)[IMO 9234044] was struck by the giant tsunami which hit Japan on Mar 11, as it was positioning itself for drilling off Hachinohe in Japan’s northeast coast. The vessel, which had on board 48 elementary students on an exposure trip, survived the tsunami but lost its navigation equipment. No students were harmed and they were evacuated by helicopter yesterday. The Chikyu, the world’s largest scientific deep sea drill ship, was doing earthquake research when the tsunami struck. The vessel is owned by the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology.
Drill ship Chikyu lost one of its propulsion pods in the tsunami on Mar 11. The ship was in port of Hachinohe on the northern tip of Honshu, when the quake occurred. The ship departed from port with full speed. During this manoeuvre, a propeller nacelle was torn off. The vessel is currently at anchor off Hachinohe. She is still manoeuvrable because of its on the whole six propeller nacelles.”

“Sailors always wear their brown pants after earthquakes”

or

“Don’t make that anchor chain TOO strong”

definitely great instructional material for seamanship training.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5MdkRHz2U4

One of my brothers and I were talking about that question of when to get out and how its in different folks natures to react in radically different ways to emergencies and events of this nature. Rush into danger, or rush out. And given similar circumstances I am afraid I’m just too curious and would likely be out there taking photos or videotaping too and might not realize the danger before its too late. The scale (size, speed, destructive power) of this event is also something that’s its so hard to wrap one’s brain around, even after the fact… so I “get” why this guy would be out there videotaping. Hopefully I won’t ever need to test that nature, and perhaps just having given it some forethought is enough but I do feel like I understand the impetus.

The village of Taro was seen as having the best sea defences in the world, 10 meter high sea walls which sectioned up the village. This was believed to make it invulnerable to tsunami. And yet…