I hope our friends in Japan come through OK too.

I also hope there is only minor slips of adjustment elsewhere.... I have that bad feeling that the San Andreas fault is due to slip....

hey DJ, where does that inundation model come from. nice image.

while Hawaii is in the firing line of this recent seismic monster, spare a though for the atolls out there like in the Marshalls, Kiribati or Tuvalu. at only metres above the high tide and battling lea level rise (it is real Mr Abbott), they can least afford the taro plot or breadfruit trees getting a fatal dose of seawater, let alone themselves and meagre belongings being washed into the Pacific.

Dribbly surf this morning, so watching the news now.... did they just say a cruise ship is missing ?? Maybe they have just lost communication with it ??

Great footage of 3 big waves rolling in before the devastation.... Big clean walls.... Looked kind of ridable!

Edit - Another quake just recently, 6ish in strength, with avalanches. At least that happened before the ski fields would have opened.

Oliver on his angry pills on a Friday night, more big hits than last nights NRL games.

Also a vid showing 'that wave' ..

It's hard to tell how big and how fast it's traveling.

DJ

Hey PT and DJ,

after a very long, very round-about transit, I've finally just got back from Japan.
All is well with our crew and we were very lucky to get out of the country when we did. Many places were almost at a standstill.

We must've been amongst the first Aussies back from Japan earlier today, because the media were all over Sydney Int'l AP and realising we'd come from Japan, rushed a few of us for news interviews. [ SBS for me].

We saw a lot of devastation from the air and it was quite numbing seeing plumes of thick, black smoke and the extent of the tidal forces having pushed well inland.

My thoughts are with our Japanese neighbours.

On a lighter note, Tues morning beckons with light winds and my new Fanatic 12'6" is calling me. I'm thinking of HMB to Ricketts return to mix it up alittle.

what a nightmare unfolding in Japan, I would assume there are lots of surf breaks up along that coast, one can only imagine being out surfing when the tsunami hit let alone all the other scenarios, phew bloody horrific, Warwick i think a debriefing paddle is required in the quiet of Half Moon, tues. 6.30 ish?

Before and after imagery from ABC

www.abc.net.au/news/specials/japan-quake-2011/

Slide your mouse along each photo. Frightening. And I work in natural disasters for a living.

DJ - Tsunamis can travel up to 800km an hour in the open ocean

The technical formula we use is V = √gD

Where v = velocity, g = acceleration due to gravity (9.8m/sec2), D = depth of ocean water. The pacific has an average depth of approx. 5.5km so a tsunami could travel at 518mph or 232m/sec. But because they have such long wave lengths they are always dragging across the ocean bottom - and due to the contours on the bottom of the ocean they typically slow down to around 700ish km/hr.

When they come into the land the front slows up and the back catches it -caused by the friction with the ocean bottom and internal turbulences. They are still doing relatively quick speeds but once they hit landfall are normally doing about 30-40km (although this is a generalisation as many factors contribute - like shape of the ocean floor, land contours etc) - which is still pretty fast. But as can be seen its not really the speed of the water that counts its the shear volume. The wall of water will do the damage no matter what the speed.

DavidJohn said...

It cycled between high tide and low tide for the next half hour many times.

yeah this is what was happening in Kavieng too apparently

Bnaccas said...

I'm worried about my new friends in Kiribati. Nothing has been said on the news but I know
their main village is only a couple metres above sea level at best.
Has anyone heard if they are OK?

Google gave me this;
---------------
Kiribati ends tsunami alert
Posted at 21:42 on 11 March, 2011 UTC
The government of Kiribati has called off its tsunami warning just min utes before the wave was due to arrive.
The secretary to the president, Tangitang Kauieata, says they've been advised by the Pacific Tsunami Center that the low lying country no longer faces a threat.
News Content ? Radio New Zealand International
PO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand
www.rnz.co.nz/international
----------------

Brendan,
You mention mining also.... I agree with you.... unfortunately, without mining, there would be (virtually) no cars, minimal metals (to differentiate us from the stone age), minimal power, no TV, no Sky News, no computers, etc.... No resins for modern surfboards..... But if you were lucky enough to be born in the greater Pacific, you might be fortunate enough to surf a big old "no fin" Olo surfboard, or Alaia !!
With sincerity,
Simon

I was up in Japan the week until yesterday, when the quake hit I was about 100km SW of Tokyo in Ebina just finishing a nice katsu-don lunch. When my local Japanese colleague said "it is a big one" that was a bit too exciting. We'd already had a smaller one on wednesday at Tskuba north east of Tokyo in our company's R&D lab.

Unexpectedly, it wasnt violent/shocking up/down as i would have expected, more side/side rolling waves getting stronger, it was pretty impossible to stand up (even for an SUPer) - scary thing was it just kept going on and on and on and on...(apparently for over 2 minutes). We were on the 6th story of a Westfield type shopping mall, I was pretty worried that was going to collapse. We could see a large steel shade structure over the mall outside bending like spaghetti. When it slowed down we ran down the fire escape only to find the exit doors closed and unbreakable (we tried) so had to go back up again and find another exit.

No real damage done to us or the building, but trains were all off then until 2am. Spent the intervening time in a dunkin donuts till 10pm and then a lovely warm karaoke bar sleeping on the floor till 2am. Transport Chaos back in city and long taxi queue and finally home to Tokyo hotel 530am. Tokyo CBD was remarkably unscathed, we didnt see any signs of damage apart from a water leak in the road at one point.

My mate was on the 34th floor of our Hotel at Shimbashi in the middle of Tokyo CBD, he reckoned it swayed like anything. We got about 3 big aftershocks over saturday in the hotel that also swayed it around.

Packed up and went to try and get the train to Narita airport (which is about 100km from the CBD) but all cancelled, as well as airport bus and even taxis not going due to road collapse. Called Qantas and changed flight out to Sunday to singapore. Got a big aftershock as we were sitting in the airport yesterday about to board.

I took my wettie to Japan and last sunday went with my mate to Kamakura which is south of Tokyo outside the bay, open coast to rent a SUP (padobo.com - check it out). Unfortunatley there was a gale blowing when we got there, so didnt surf, but hung around and had lunch right by the beach. When I saw the pics of the Tsunami, really bought home how the poor buggers got whacked - if it had been sunday where we were we'd have had no chance.

Luckily all my colleagues and friends up there are accounted for, not sure about thier wider families etc. Our offices closed for the week.

I am back home from singapore thur/fri so happy about that. I think the "lifes too short" justification could well see a new SUP in the quiver shortly.

cheers, wayne.