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Japan hit with 9.0 Earthquake and 45 ft Tsunami

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Pretty eerily-cool article from the NYTimes...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21stones.html?hp

April 20, 2011
Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone

By MARTIN FACKLER

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ANEYOSHI, Japan - The stone tablet has stood on this forested hillside since before they were born, but the villagers have faithfully obeyed the stark warning carved on its weathered face: "Do not build your homes below this point!"

Residents say this injunction from their ancestors kept their tiny village of 11 households safely out of reach of the deadly tsunami last month that wiped out hundreds of miles of Japanese coast and rose to record heights near here. The waves stopped just 300 feet below the stone, and the village beyond it.

"They knew the horrors of tsunamis, so they erected that stone to warn us," said Tamishige Kimura, 64, the village leader of Aneyoshi.


Hundreds of these so-called tsunami stones, some more than six centuries old, dot the coast of Japan, standing in silent testimony to the past destruction that these lethal waves have frequented upon this earthquake-prone nation. But modern Japan, confident that advanced technology and higher seawalls would protect vulnerable areas, came to forget or ignore these ancient warnings, dooming it to repeat bitter experiences when the recent tsunami struck.

"The tsunami stones are warnings across generations, telling descendants to avoid the same suffering of their ancestors," said Itoko Kitahara, a specialist in the history of natural disasters at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. "Some places heeded these lessons of the past, but many didn?t."
The flat stones, some as tall as 10 feet, are a common sight here along Japan?s rugged northeastern shore, which bore the brunt of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that left almost 29,000 people dead and missing.

While some of the stones are so old that the characters are worn away, most were erected about a century ago after two deadly tsunamis here, including one in 1896 that killed 22,000 people. Many of the stones carry simple warnings to drop everything and seek higher ground after a strong earthquake. Others provide grim reminders of the waves' destructive force by listing past death tolls or marking mass graves...
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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQqmp9OOE1E"]Tsunami Japanese inside a car! ???? - YouTube[/ame]

Yu Muroga was doing his job making deliveries when the 11 March 2011 earthquake hit in Japan. Unaware, like many people in the area, of how far inland the Tsunami would travel, he continued to drive and do his job. The HD camera mounted on his dashboard captured not only the earthquake, but also the moment he and several other drivers were suddenly engulfed in the Tsunami. He escaped from the vehicle seconds before it was crushed by other debris and sunk underwater. His car and the camera have only recently been recovered by the police. The camera was heavily damaged but a video expert was able to retrieve this footage.
 
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Probably a few more of these stories will be coming soon.

A teenager who lost his home in Japan's devastating tsunami now knows that one prized possession survived: a football (soccer ball) that drifted all the way to Alaska.

A man found the ball while beachcombing on an Alaskan island, and his wife, who is Japanese, talked with its owner, 16-year-old Misaki Murakami, by phone over the weekend. They plan to send the ball back to him soon.
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http://news.yahoo.com/boy-glad-football-lost-tsunami-found-alaska-060602434.html
 
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....wow. Water, and nature in general, does not give any cares for what stands in its way. The level and ferocity with which that creek/river gained water is just absurd to me. Seems beyond comprehension that water can do that.

Feel so insignificant in the grand scheme of the world and its processes.
 
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