Non-funny images

[IanKennedy]

[Graham Kennedy]

Just awful.

[Tsukiyumi]

That is some seriously bad business.

[Deepcrush]

I found a couple of those funny.

[Tsukiyumi]

I found a couple of those funny.

Okay, the giant pile of cargo containers, I find a bit amusing. They look like Legos.

Maybe the boat on top of the building. That one is still more of a "holy sh*t, them's some serious waves." reaction for me, though.

[kostmayer]

What ticks me off about all of this is that the press seem intent on focusing on the crisis at the Nuclear plant, whilst there are tens of thousands of people affected the tsunami still in dire need of aid.

[Graham Kennedy]

Tsunamis are very strange things. Whenever I look at footage of one, I think "well that doesn't look so bad..." It's like the water's not all that deep, and it's not going all that fast. Then I see pictures like this and it's just an amazing amount of damage.

[Mikey]

Tsunamis are very strange things. Whenever I look at footage of one, I think "well that doesn't look so bad..." It's like the water's not all that deep, and it's not going all that fast. Then I see pictures like this and it's just an amazing amount of damage.

Not that deep? There are tsunamis on record of over 70-foot swell height. Though, I see what you mean about the apparent speed. I guess with that amount of mass hitting an inhabited area, the velocity is relatively unimportant. A wrecking ball is going to go through your house, no matter it's speed (unless it's speed is zero.)

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Tsunamis are very strange things. Whenever I look at footage of one, I think "well that doesn't look so bad..." It's like the water's not all that deep, and it's not going all that fast. Then I see pictures like this and it's just an amazing amount of damage.

Not that deep? There are tsunamis on record of over 70-foot swell height. Though, I see what you mean about the apparent speed. I guess with that amount of mass hitting an inhabited area, the velocity is relatively unimportant. A wrecking ball is going to go through your house, no matter it's speed (unless it's speed is zero.)

I've gotten the same sense; somehow the footage doesn't really convey the full height of the water as you'd imagine it (perhaps because the only surviving cameras have to be at a distance - and above the water level). The wave is dozens of feet high in reality, but for some reason doesn't "look" as impressive to my eye in the video. Maybe it's just my perception...

But the pics of the damage are astounding. It doesn't take much for moving water to bulldoze things: 1000 times the density of air makes waves that much more destructive than wind of the same speed.

[Graham Kennedy]

What I'm saying is that they never look all that high in the footage. The boxing day one a while back for instance; looking at this, or this, it just doesn't look all that bad. The water is maybe three to five feet high. The Japanese one looks worse, but even there the water looks maybe ten feet or so even in the worst movies I've seen.

Perhaps it's that the worst parts don't get because people are too busy running and dying, or perhaps they just do a lot of damage without looking all that bad to me. I guess on a subconscious level I have all those giant waves you see in Hollywood movies as my model of what it should look like.

[Tsukiyumi]

In reality, storm surge is scary as hell when you're in it. It's basically the same as a tsunami, just different causes.

[Graham Kennedy]

I've been watching more vids of it on Youtube, and what's most impressive is just how long the waves are. They're not all that high or fast, but the water just keeps coming and coming. One vid I saw, the first wave hit and more than five minutes later the clip ended with it still showing no sign of easing off. There were whole buildings that stood up to the water for two, three minutes but eventually it was just too much accumulated damage and just ripped to bits.

[Mikey]

I've been watching more vids of it on Youtube, and what's most impressive is just how long the waves are. They're not all that high or fast, but the water just keeps coming and coming. One vid I saw, the first wave hit and more than five minutes later the clip ended with it still showing no sign of easing off. There were whole buildings that stood up to the water for two, three minutes but eventually it was just too much accumulated damage and just ripped to bits.

Yeah, that's incredible. The sheer volume of water is staggering, especially considering that we're used to waves that crest and then are gone.

[stitch626]

What amazes me is the way some things don't get damaged. Take the house with the plane in it. it looks like there is no other damage, aside form the hole in the wall from the plane.

[Tsukiyumi]

What amazes me is the way some things don't get damaged. Take the house with the plane in it. it looks like there is no other damage, aside form the hole in the wall from the plane.

Structural integrity was still at 5%.