The wave in the foreground, then, simply doesn't look that large. But, of course, as we know looks are clearly decieving in this case.
I have read that the closer to shore line the tsunami gets the higher it gets. Don't know if this one got higher or not.
What's heading towards them isn't the same thing. It's the whole freaking ocean that had just got sucked out. There isn't a back side to the swell like a normal wave.
Looking at the third picture, they are about to get pummelled by the leading edge, with the second tier right behind it. They won't just get knocked to the ground and then pop back up. They are going to get slammed and dragged all the way up to the beach and into the treeline and/or village.
Crushed first and then drowned.
The wave builds in height as it reaches shallower water. In really deep water, it may only be a few inches in height.
Think of it this way - on the other side of the wave front, there is no trough (as you would normally expect). The top of the wave is the new height of the ocean (for the next hour or so)
...to someone who's never been caught in undertow or heavy surf.
Tsunamis are not usually very high, but the swell can be as far as a mile deep. A half mile of water 10 feet high traveling at a couple hundred miles an hour equals extreme force and a lot of water flooding in.
I copied the last photograph, number 3, and blew it up for a close up view of the woman and the group of people she was running towards, with the waves and sailboats in the background.
On zooming in to that group, one can have a much better idea how it looked from the perspective of the woman in the photo.
Then you can understand.
Tsunamis are not necessarily these huge 50-foot waves we imagine.
But, they move so fast....500 mph in this case, that even if they are only 10-15 feet high, it doesn't matter.
You are swept under and you drown due to the suction etc.
One diver told his story on the news a bit ago about how he barely survived as the wave rolled over him and he felt like he was being sucked down.
I work with a couple Indian's who said there families are fine....but one guy told us that the people who actually run into a tsunami have a much better chance or surviving than the people who run from it. He said if you swim past the waves you are better off....don't know how he knows that....but it sounds like it could be logical. I know of one couple that were just scuba diving right before the waves hit and were fine.
Tsunamis are not normal, steep fronted waves. They are more like a tidal bore. Except instead of the foam line being a couple feet tall, it is, typically, 6 - 150 feet tall. This tsunami was actually much smaller than what was experienced in the North Pacific in '64. One place in Alaska it was *200 feet* tall. Hitting Crescent City, CA, it was still at 20 feet.