Posted on 12/30/2004 7:06:00 AM PST by dead
That's the part you don't understand.
The "breaking edge" of a tsunami is a couple of miles thick.
Thanks, When you used the "Flash Flood" comparison, it helped my desert born and raised brain understand.
I can understand the tourists' reactions, but how long after the quake did the tsunami hit? Did the authories in those areas move to evacuate immediately after? The experts would have known better than the tourists.
You are wrong it are not a hill it is the tsunami approaching. If there were hills out there then they would have blocked the wave and the water would have been diverted.
You can also see in the pictures that the ocean has receded. Again, hills if that is what they are, would have blocked the ocean from receding.
The water rises up in a plume as the depth decreases.
You've seen one too many Hollywood disaster films.
If you look in the first two photos, there is a yellow inflatable raft visible in the distance on the left side of the picture (in the middle of the left edge). Also, you cannot see the people that the woman is trying to reach. In the third picture, the woman has passed that raft and it sits in the bottom right portion of the picture, but you can now see those she was desparately trying to reach. She ran to the left, and the photographer shifted to the left as well, so we can no longer see the land mass.
"The turbulent white water is directly in front of the so called hills."
Not really. It only looks like it because of the telephoto lens used by the photographer. It is actually miles away.
No, I think you're wrong about this. Yes, tsunamis are "awesome", and "powerful", but that doesn't mean they kill as soon as they touch someone, or smash a person to bits against debris like a tornado, or anything else that would make even an experienced surfer "completely helpless".
The "power" of a tsuami like the one in the photograph is owing to the quantity of water that rushes inland. It's much like a (very deep) flash flood. It's not that it crashes into people like a supersonic freight train. It's just that you cannot resist its flow. You can't stay on your feet, and you can't do much but be carried along with the water.
When the wave reaches a swimmer it's a wall of water going ~20 mph. What matters at the moment of impact is largely that fact, not how fast the wave was going out at sea, how long the gap between peak and trough, and all the rest.
A wall of water moving at ~20mph is definitely survivable. If you dove into that wall, you would to a lot to minimize the impact to yourself. You would be reducing your surface area, and reducing the amount of force transmitted from water to you. So, you would reduce the tumbling that would likely occur down along the sand. Once the turbulent leading edge of the wave passed, you wouldn't be "pushed down into the sand" for minutes at a time. You'd be able to push up from the bottom to the surface.
Now, you'd be right in the middle of a ~20 mph water current, heading inland. There's nothing you can do to fight that current, but you can swim laterally, and perhaps grab onto a tree, or a structure.
So, I think Monday's right. You wouldn't be entirely helpless in the face of a wave like that.
And if you look at the pictures, you can see that even the top of that second wave stacked on the first is no more than about 15'. You can see that by looking at the boats right in front of the second wave. The second wave is no more than 7 or 8' above the water level after the first wave, and maybe a bit less. (How tall are those masts, do you think?) The first wave is about the same height above the floor.
I recognized from the first time I looked at the pictures that different lens settings were used. That still doesn't change the fact that the blue shape in the back ground is the tsunami wave approaching.
If you look carefully, you can see a radio tower on that "huge wall of water". Honestly......you are mistaken. A wave that size wouldn't have left any survivors in that part of Thailand.
In post 109 there is a link to the videos. In one of the videos you actually see the sequence of waves coming in.
This is the third time I have gone back and looked at these pictures. I would guess that the family of six is all dead now. The father and 4 children had probably gone out to where the water was, not realizing what was coming. I don't know, if I had been there, that I would have realized why the water was so far out. I would think it was a very low tide. Tragic tragic.
" but that doesn't mean they kill as soon as they touch someone, or smash a person to bits against debris like a tornado"
Stronger people were more likely to survive than the young or old, but I wouldn't like to be caught in the whitewater on the face. That would be a long ride in a washing machine spin cycle. Better to dive under the leading edge and come up behind if the water is deep enough. Even if it did sweep you inland on it's back, so to speak, your chances of survival would be greatly increased.
Oh for Pete's sake, there is a radio tower out there and that is land. Get a grip! Also, check out the 3 photos and see that your "wall of water" doesn't change shape...kind of like LAND!!
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