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How do you come to that conclusion? Those buildings are three stories tall. If you allow 9 to 10 feet per floor, the roofs are about 27 to 30 feet above the ground. So the roof levels would have been right about where the debris would have accumulated on top of the water. If in fact it was a thirty foot wave.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KaaBoom
How do you come to that conclusion? Those buildings are three stories tall. If you allow 9 to 10 feet per floor, the roofs are about 27 to 30 feet above the ground. So the roof levels would have been right about where the debris would have accumulated on top of the water. If in fact it was a thirty foot wave.
if you look at the building in the back, the top portion has some sort of facade on the top which looks to be an extra 6 feet and is all torn up on top of the roof with a car on top.. i figure the tsunami in this area had to be at least 40 feet high plus i've seen other pics that suggest a tsunami of 40 to 50 feet in some areas. in another pic i saw a 4 story building with a large fishing net wrapped around the top portion of the building.. ohh forgot to mention that those buildings probably were at least 10 feet above sea level or more, so you would have to add the extra footage to the hight of the buildings.. just saying
Last edited by cruxan; 03-19-2011 at 12:38 PM..
Reason: added some comment
if you look at the building in the back, the top portion has some sort of facade on the top which looks to be an extra 6 feet and is all torn up on top of the roof with a car on top.. i figure the tsunami in this area had to be at least 40 feet high plus i've seen other pics that suggest a tsunami of 40 to 50 feet in some areas. in another pic i saw a 4 story building with a large fishing net wrapped around the top portion of the building.. ohh forgot to mention that those buildings probably were at least 10 feet above sea level or more, so you would have to add the extra footage to the hight of the buildings.. just saying
Well of course the wave can splash upward a lot higher. I saw one video taken from behind eight to ten story tall buildings. When the tsunami hit the seawall in front of the buildings, the spray from the wave went way over the tops of those buildings. Probably hundreds of feet in the air.
Also there were many large boats washed inland. Some of them floating maybe twenty feet about the surface, that could have hit the tops of buildings probably five six story buildings tall. Another thing to consider is the elevation of the buildings. Some of these buildings could be 10 or 20 feet below sea level. In which case of course the wave would have gone farther up on the building.
Anyways, I'm not saying that tsunami wasn't higher then 30 feet. I don't know, but the damage in that picture looks to me, to be consistent with a 30 foot wave. Just saying.
if you look at the building in the back, the top portion has some sort of facade on the top which looks to be an extra 6 feet and is all torn up on top of the roof with a car on top.. i figure the tsunami in this area had to be at least 40 feet high plus i've seen other pics that suggest a tsunami of 40 to 50 feet in some areas. in another pic i saw a 4 story building with a large fishing net wrapped around the top portion of the building.. ohh forgot to mention that those buildings probably were at least 10 feet above sea level or more, so you would have to add the extra footage to the hight of the buildings.. just saying
The general height of the waves is thought to have been about 9 meters (29 feet) in height. It's hard to say if the building in your OP photo was damaged primariy from the quake, from the quake and tsunami, or from the tsunami alone. Could the tsunami wave have hit the building at that height? Absolutely yes!
That said, since the speed of the tsunami waves would've been traveling across the ocean at nearly 600 or so miles per hour. Once they reached the shallower waters of the land mass, the energy becomes compressed and builds enormous power. When it is finally released against dry land, one of two things will happen. (1) If the land surface is fairly flat and free of obstacles to slow it down, the water will continue inland quite a distance from the force of wave after wave. (2) If there are obstacles such as buildings, etc., in the path, the wave will crash causing a splash that can reach considerable heights as it hits the obstacles head on.
I think it's quite possible for a crashing tsunami wave to have caused direct damage as seen in the OP photo. But there'd also be little doubt that the building would've been previously damaged from the quake.
Here's a look at some crashing waves from the tsunami that hit Japan. The height of the splash looks to be incredibly high. It's worth noting that crashing waves from the 2004 SE Asian tsunami hitting Thailand also generated some very impressive heights in certain areas, not as high, but extremely powerful. The quake was barely felt in Thailand, and the destruction was caused solely from the tsunami.
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i still think the tsunami was at lest 40 or more feet in that location where the pics where taken. the damage does not look like earthquake damage. and i went on the google earth and went over a lot of coastline and most of the land is about 10 to 15 feet above sea level on the coast. suggesting a bigger wave hit in some areas. for one if that land was below sea level the area would have standing water around the buildings.... in the future they will come out with evidence of just how high the tsunami was in certain locations. every scientist and his brother will want to come out and go there and do studies on this disaster.. it will take some time but the truth will come out.. wish i could find the other pic of the large fishing net wrapped around the fourth floor of a 4 story building.,thousands of pics to go through
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