Tsunami Reality Vs Tsunami Movies
One month ago, yesterday, a 15 metre high tsunami slammed into Japan's coastline, after a massive 9.1 magnitude earthquake. More than 30,000 people were killed, thousands of homes & business destroyed and 31 days later Japan is still battling to contain radioactivity spilling from a Fukushima nuclear plant.
The March 11 Japan tsunami was the first tsunami to be broadcast on live TV. But even though tsunamis have been depicted in movies for nearly 90 years, the reality of a series of giant waves sweeping through cities, towns and farming communities was vastly different from how they've been depicted in disaster movies.
A comparison.
Deep Impact :
2012 :
The Day After Tomorrow :
The terrifying reality, from Kesennuma, Japan, March 11, 2011.
Showing posts with label Japan earthquake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan earthquake. Show all posts
Monday, April 11, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tsunami Meets Port City = Oblivion
By Darryl Mason
As a kid, I can't recall ever seeing actual photos of a tsunami ploughing into a city. If there was film footage of such an event, it was never shown on any TV I saw, and it's the sort of thing I would have been looking for. About all we saw of tsunamis were the ones featured in 1960s disaster movies, and most of those were caused by Godzilla and his friends.
There were encyclopedia entries on tsunamis, and the occasional book to be found in libraries on the subject, but mostly it was left to your own imagination to visualise waves 5, 10 or 20 metres high slamming into a city.
We've seen footage in the past decade of tsunamis, captured on video & cell phone cameras, particularly the 2004 Asian tsunami, with those horrific clips of sea water sweeping through exotic resorts. And we've seen the devastation that tsunamis can cause portrayed, often astoundingly so, through CGI special effects in movies like The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and Deep Impact.
But none of it compares to footage like this from the 2011 Japan tsunami, where you can see the Japanese port city of Kesennuma utterly destroyed in less than five minutes, entire neighbourhoods smashed, broken and carried away :
Where once there was a modern, vibrant Japanese port city, there is now only death and devastation.
Has anybody who lives near the coast and has seen footage like that above not felt a sickening unease about just how vulnerable to such a disaster every coastal town and city in the world just might be?
Some more than others, obviously.
But tsunamis are not caused solely by earthquakes. Underwater landslides, massive landslides into a sea on the other side of the planet, and asteroids slamming into oceans are all believed to have caused ancient mega-tsunamis, bigger than any that have hit human civilization's villages, towns and cities in the past 10,000 years.
Tsunamis once seemed such a distant threat, something from history, from fables, from science fiction movies. Not anymore. As the swaying skyscrapers of Tokyo have shown, you can protect a city's buildings from even a 9.1 magnitude earthquake, but the biggest sea walls cannot hold back a tsunami of 10 or 20 metres high.
What the earthquake cannot shake down, the tsunami can wipe away, almost effortlessly.
By Darryl Mason
As a kid, I can't recall ever seeing actual photos of a tsunami ploughing into a city. If there was film footage of such an event, it was never shown on any TV I saw, and it's the sort of thing I would have been looking for. About all we saw of tsunamis were the ones featured in 1960s disaster movies, and most of those were caused by Godzilla and his friends.
There were encyclopedia entries on tsunamis, and the occasional book to be found in libraries on the subject, but mostly it was left to your own imagination to visualise waves 5, 10 or 20 metres high slamming into a city.
We've seen footage in the past decade of tsunamis, captured on video & cell phone cameras, particularly the 2004 Asian tsunami, with those horrific clips of sea water sweeping through exotic resorts. And we've seen the devastation that tsunamis can cause portrayed, often astoundingly so, through CGI special effects in movies like The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and Deep Impact.
But none of it compares to footage like this from the 2011 Japan tsunami, where you can see the Japanese port city of Kesennuma utterly destroyed in less than five minutes, entire neighbourhoods smashed, broken and carried away :
Where once there was a modern, vibrant Japanese port city, there is now only death and devastation.
Has anybody who lives near the coast and has seen footage like that above not felt a sickening unease about just how vulnerable to such a disaster every coastal town and city in the world just might be?
Some more than others, obviously.
But tsunamis are not caused solely by earthquakes. Underwater landslides, massive landslides into a sea on the other side of the planet, and asteroids slamming into oceans are all believed to have caused ancient mega-tsunamis, bigger than any that have hit human civilization's villages, towns and cities in the past 10,000 years.
Tsunamis once seemed such a distant threat, something from history, from fables, from science fiction movies. Not anymore. As the swaying skyscrapers of Tokyo have shown, you can protect a city's buildings from even a 9.1 magnitude earthquake, but the biggest sea walls cannot hold back a tsunami of 10 or 20 metres high.
What the earthquake cannot shake down, the tsunami can wipe away, almost effortlessly.
Friday, March 18, 2011
"Stay Calm, Don't Panic....And God Bless America"
"Women And Children First" - US Military Begins Evacuations From Japan
Unprecedented : American Military Families Told To Leave Behind Pets, Pack For "3 To 5 Days" And Leave Japan "In An Orderly Fashion"
By Darryl Mason
The US government and the Pentagon don't believe Japan's claims that they will be able to contain radiation from the tsunami-destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant and have released an extraordinary video for American military family members living in Japan, preparing them to get the hell out of Japan.
The key words are "Calm", "Don't Panic" and "Unprecedented".
Some quotes :
There more are than 90,000 American service men and women and their family members in Japan. For the next 9 days, dozens of American airforce & commercial jets & cargo planes will be airlifting some 10,000 evacuees from Japan per day. They are only allowed to take the minimum they need to survive and pets apparently will be abandoned.
10,000 Americans per day will leave Japan, taking with them hundreds of millions of dollars in daily spending, rentals, shopping, with no set idea when, or even if, they will ever return.
Yes. Unprecedented is probably the right word.
Unnerving Headlines On The Japan Nuclear Disaster :
Japan Admits Disaster Is 'Level 5 Nuclear Emergency' - Severe Damage To Reactor Core, Release Of Large Quantities Of Radiation, High Probability Of Significant Public Exposure
Russia Says Japan In Throes Of Colossal Disaster
Passengers From Tokyo Landing In US Trigger Radiation Detectors
Japan Reaches Out To US In 'Race Against The Clock
US Warnings About Little Or No Water In Cooling Ponds Go Unreported In Japanese Media
Australia Urges Citizens To Leave Tokyo
UN Atomic Chief Calls For World To Help Japan
"Women And Children First" - US Military Begins Evacuations From Japan
Unprecedented : American Military Families Told To Leave Behind Pets, Pack For "3 To 5 Days" And Leave Japan "In An Orderly Fashion"
By Darryl Mason
The US government and the Pentagon don't believe Japan's claims that they will be able to contain radiation from the tsunami-destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant and have released an extraordinary video for American military family members living in Japan, preparing them to get the hell out of Japan.
The key words are "Calm", "Don't Panic" and "Unprecedented".
Some quotes :
"Get your passports together, prepare for 3 to 5 days, and then wait and we will get more information as to when the first airplane will arrive....pack for 3 to 5 days, the diapers that you need, the baby food that you need, those sort of things, to work within those 3 to 5 days before you get to a place where you can settle down a bit."
"(Admiral of the 7th Fleet) believe it is best for all of us, that is the military, as far as mission readiness, to remove our families from the calculus."
"We don't know what the state of the final reactor will be...the president has gone ahead and allowed this voluntary evacuation of non-essential personnel.....have I covered everything?"
"What do I do with my car? What do I do with my pets? We don't have an answer for that yet."
"Get the things you need to get, pack, don't panic."
"Women And Children First."
There more are than 90,000 American service men and women and their family members in Japan. For the next 9 days, dozens of American airforce & commercial jets & cargo planes will be airlifting some 10,000 evacuees from Japan per day. They are only allowed to take the minimum they need to survive and pets apparently will be abandoned.
10,000 Americans per day will leave Japan, taking with them hundreds of millions of dollars in daily spending, rentals, shopping, with no set idea when, or even if, they will ever return.
Yes. Unprecedented is probably the right word.
Unnerving Headlines On The Japan Nuclear Disaster :
Japan Admits Disaster Is 'Level 5 Nuclear Emergency' - Severe Damage To Reactor Core, Release Of Large Quantities Of Radiation, High Probability Of Significant Public Exposure
Russia Says Japan In Throes Of Colossal Disaster
Passengers From Tokyo Landing In US Trigger Radiation Detectors
Japan Reaches Out To US In 'Race Against The Clock
US Warnings About Little Or No Water In Cooling Ponds Go Unreported In Japanese Media
Australia Urges Citizens To Leave Tokyo
UN Atomic Chief Calls For World To Help Japan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)