Tsunami Japan: How high was the wave? Onagawa

[davidestep]

This is so incredible. Hard to imagine what it would be like to see a wave of the height that it would take to reach the 2nd floor of the hospital. Terrifying and I will have to say that it's a real tragedy, can't imagine.

[jonathanhall]

The sight and the sound of a tsunami of that size coming in is unimaginable.

[sebastianhagedorn]

That's unimaginable. Truly not to believe what hits this city.

[felixcat]

At its highest point the wave reached 128 feet and at it's furthest, it inundated to a distance of 6 miles inland!

I believe this may have been the location in which that maximum height was reached.

As someone who's 6 feet tall, the prospect of an approaching wave of 128 feet is virtually beyond comprehension, and the force behind it is capable of obliterating everything in its path.

Thank you for this very thoughtful video detailing the horrific tragedy that befell this community.

Your respectful perspective will help many viewers to understand the magnitude of what took place that cold afternoon.

Edited to say that the video footage of the tsunami attacking this exact location is utterly horrific!

The water that struck the hospital on the hill was the surge height, which was actually higher than that which inundated the rest of the community (I just saw a scientific video on this wave that struck the hospital being so high, but people on the smaller building facing the sea videoing the incident survived, because of the difference in the height from surge to inundation).

[seriouslyreally]

The rise of the sea level was not so much as individual waves but caused by the inundation of multiple waves rolling in one behind the other preventing the volume of water from the previous waves to drain away is what caused the astounding rise. The energy and the accumulated volume of water that backed up against rocky cliffs was devastating. The worst damage were suffered in coastal cities and villages built in alcoves, inlets closed in on 3 sides by steep mountainous and sheer rock cliffs.

[hebneh]

This video clearly shows the tsunami escape routes that the Japanese federal government constructed in countless locations along the coastlines of Japan - stairs, paths, ramps, and huge retaining walls. These proved their value by saving thousands of evacuees in 2011. This hospital was intentionally built at this elevation to put above the known inundation levels of previous historic tsunamis, yet as he says, it was still not high enough to escape the ocean water in this disaster. What he didn't show were the additional steps on the hill above the hospital, where a number of people took shelter, and fortunately survived.

[liszafricaminmin]

Gracias por la explicación de la súper ola que barrió esta ciudad, muy explícito el vídeo.

[raywes]

No doubt the height of the water caught many people off guard who thought they were safe at lower level evacuation points only to find out otherwise. I'm sure is the reason also why there are prolly less than a handful of videos each from here and neighboring towns showing the devastation as it happened.

[menjivar]

I'm wondering if there's still big vessels drifting on the Ocean

[fedenafo]

17.5 m. High! How this could be possible? The force of the 9 Ritchter quake increase on the sea waters

[Blackwolfufk]

What was the brown building's function (0:03 time stamp), was it a museum or port offices? I can't seem to find out anything about the building?

[xaiano]

I saw the video. People were washed off the roof of 4 storey buildings

[nurfyturf]

But the guy who was on the brown building recording didn't get submerged completely. And you said the wave reach to the hospital.

[denniskoller]

So we're talking how many feet here? 150 feet, 200 ft. More? How much is it from sea level to the second level of the hospital? Altitude of what?

[kurtfroberg]

You’ve got a hard hat and worker garb on (not to mention the cool sunglasses). You mean to tell me that you refused to pull out your tape measure and tell us (in meters or footage) exactly how high that wave was?

[chastaind]

that's a lot of "Olympic sized swimming pools" of water

[zeff]

Tsunami run-up is not the same as tsunami wave

[keithadams]

How can you be that young and be that out of breath climbing 2 flights to stairs

[brolymeng]

The link above here is a near full video of the tsunami and yes it's a near full video. For the reason the original video was cut short is because it captured the graphic moments where the tsunami swept 13 people away near the man who was filming it despite how tall they were the tsunami still managed to reached them. The creator of the channel cryingforbread explained of what happened during those shots and out of the 13 people on the roof only one of them survive by holding on debris in the cold night until he/she was rescued.

[mrpoopoohead]

so it appears as though if you were standing down at waters edge before the ocean level rise...it must have been about 75-150 feet ocean level rise??? I think about Hawaii...if you look at there coastline, especially Oahau...it is scary how many people will get washed away if a similar tsunami comes roaring inland after a quake??