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Merged 8.8 quake in Sendai, Japan

Kestrel said:
The towns closest to the quake had about 15 minutes warning. How far did people have to go to get out of the tsunami zone? Was it walking a couple hundred meters to a nearby hill or several kilometers?
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From people I have known in tsunami areas, they have situational awareness of where to get too. In Japan earthquake and tsunami drills are common, so once they heard the siren, the knew what will save them, they dont waste time on decision making
 
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Undesired Walrus said:
Here's an article talking about how a few seconds can make all the difference:



Check out the system as it worked on TV:
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In fact, you are right about that. The TV warnings are impressively fast and could indeed have saved some people's lives. Almost instantaneous. And I think the Shinkansen and nuclear reactors having built in safety mechanisms for things like earthquakes managed to prevent a far greater loss of life.

That said, what I was thinking of was the low-lying villages on the coast. Through no fault of Japan's early-warnings for tsunamis the people in the towns and villages simply had no time to leave.

So, I agree with you Undesired Walrus that things could have been much worse were it not for Japan's early-warning systems.
 
Sword_Of_Truth said:
Tony is no stranger to nuclear energy.

The devastation he refers to is the harm the bad publicity will cause to the nuclear industry, technological civilizations best hope for cheap clean and abundant energy.
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Ohhhh.

I'm an ass.
 
It's good to hear some people got out in time, that's for sure. It seems to be devastating enough as it is though.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Has it? I'd like to believe that's the case, but I'm not clear that people had sufficient time to evacuate the affected area. How much difference did the warnings make, does anyone know?

Rolfe.
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I do remember reading about a British family involved in the Indonesian tsunami; they were on the beach and the water went out a long way. The daughter had just looked at tsunamis at primary school, and realised what was happening, and they and several other families managed to get sufficiently high in time due to her quick thinking.

That can't have been very much warning.

I bet at the time her teacher didn't think it would be the most useful thing she was taught at school.
 
jimbob said:
I do remember reading about a British family involved in the Indonesian tsunami; they were on the beach and the water went out a long way. The daughter had just looked at tsunamis at primary school, and realised what was happening, and they and several other families managed to get sufficiently high in time due to her quick thinking.

That can't have been very much warning.

I bet at the time her teacher didn't think it would be the most useful thing she was taught at school.
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That's true, there was somewhere to run to there. I was just looking a the sheer width of the wave front we saw advancing, with no high ground in sight, and the apparent impossibility of getting away from it. But maybe it wasn't quite as bad as it looks.

Rolfe.
 
One image of a fire (still burning intensely) being carried along with debris will certainly not fall from my memory for some time to come.
 
angrysoba said:
In fact, you are right about that. The TV warnings are impressively fast and could indeed have saved some people's lives. Almost instantaneous. And I think the Shinkansen and nuclear reactors having built in safety mechanisms for things like earthquakes managed to prevent a far greater loss of life.

That said, what I was thinking of was the low-lying villages on the coast. Through no fault of Japan's early-warnings for tsunamis the people in the towns and villages simply had no time to leave.

So, I agree with you Undesired Walrus that things could have been much worse were it not for Japan's early-warning systems.
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I see you're in Osaka. How are things there ?
 
We have our first Darwin candidate: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/11/tsunami/index.html?hpt=T1

(CNN) -- One person was reported dead and numerous boats and harbors suffered damage in the United States after the tsunami triggered by the massive earthquake off Japan swept across the Pacific Ocean at jet speed Friday.
The fatality was reported in northern California's Del Norte County, where a 25-year-old man was declared dead Friday afternoon after being swept out to sea off a beach while trying to photograph the tsunami's arrival, said Joey Young, a spokesman for the county's emergency operations center.
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