There is one thing nobody has talked about, I know for a fact that Japan has created tsunami berms, gates and flood channels as it was on several documentaries, but was there any of this type of infrastructure built along the bays in this area?
The images I saw were of massive tall flood gates at least 30 feet tall, these I don’t know where were built, my guess is they were further south.
In Taro.........which was destroyed. The water went right over the walls.
They actually had some discussion on Tokyo Broadcast the other evening about the specially built tsunami berms. As with most things they were built for a particular level of catastrophe. ‘Mother Nature’ in this case has exceeded all of those. They basically didn’t do much as the surge was so significant that it spilled over the top and just kept going (up to 1.5m inland in some places).
There was one older lady who said some people didn’t leave when the very short warning came because they thought the berm woud be able to handle it.
I couldn’t quite catch if the large steel doors to allow passthrough transit were able to be shut in time.
The only comment I read about Sendai and Miyagi specifically, was that the tsunami plowed right through the sea walls that had been built.
They simply were not built for a tsunami this big.
I saw a video or two where you could see the water rushing over berms and through channels.
In one video, there were two buildings that stood across the street from each other and were about 4 stories high and sitting relatively close to the ocean. There were no taller buildings between them and the ocean.
Early in the video, you could see water wrapping around the buildings at street level and channeling down the street. A minute later, the camera panned back and the water now channeling around the buildings was passing through the oceanside corner window of one building and flowing out the side corner window... on the 3rd floor!
I also saw a video of what looks like a tsunami channel with berms on either side and a road running parallel to the channel and about 10 or 15 feet below the top of the berm. The video starts just as the water is busting over the top of the berm and hitting the street below. There are two large boats (the second looked to be a private yacht about 60 to 70 feet long) and both are being swept over the berm to the street below and crashing into the underside of a bridge.
The other remarkable shot was of a bus in a low-lying area scrambling to get up a hill and just manages to make it up the street just as the water comes rushing in behind it. It’s a little unclear, but I think the back end of the bus actually gets pushed sideways by the water before he gets traction back and scoots up the hill to safety. Either way, there’s bound to be a few stains on those seat cushions.