Take a look at this video HERE.
I don't know about you - but even if we assumed that the two-level house in the video is 6.1 meters (20-feet) tall - and then add in maybe 1.83 meters (6-feet) for the roof... that wall of water is a heck of a lot higher than 10 meters (30-feet) before it crashes into and over the tsunami wall barrier!
While at one time I could calculate the height of a mountain on the moon by looking at a photograph of it and measuring the shadow... those days are long past... but that tsunami! Oh, my! It's at least 15.24 meters (50-feet) in height.
And... there were initial estimates of it reaching nearly 24.38 meters (80-feet) in height in one other place.
According to a field survey at the Japan Port And Airport Research Institute (JPARI), the tsunami that struck Ofunato-shi (City of Ofunato) in Iwate-ken (Iwate Prefecture) was 23.59 meters (77.4 feet) in height... more than double the official line given to media.
Guy Gelfenbaum, a United States Geological Survey Oceanographer says:"Watching the video images on TV of the Japan tsunami, it is not a surprise that the tsunami was as large as is starting to be reported... While it is not a surprise, tsunami heights this large are not common -- they are fairly rare."
Even if this height were to be confirmed - it's still not a Japanese record. It is almost half as tall as the tsunami that was caused by the 1896 Meiji Sanriku earthquake - 38.1 meters (125-feet) high - that in combination with the earthshaker killed 27,000 people.
According to Toda Kazuhiko (surname first) a researcher with the JPARI, the tsunami height of 10 meters (30-feet) was measured at a point where counter-tsunami facilities and breakwaters were set-up - which is why it may have given an artificial height.
Gelfenbaum explains that tsunami heights are measured by the depth of water above ground, the depth of water above sea level at the time of the tsunami, and the elevation of the ground at the maximum inundation distance.
Andrew Joseph
PS: The ukiyo-e image above is by legendary artist Hokusai, and is part of his famous 36 Views of Mt. Fuji series. The scene is called: The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki namiura). I do not own an original woodblock print of this - it's a way too expensive - this is an image from a postcard series I bought at the Tokyo Museum. The original is in the Hakone Museum in Tokyo and is from around 1831.
