Another tsunami video (via YouTube)
May. 27th, 2006 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tagrynDramatic video of the '04 tsunami from Thailand here via Youtube. Hadn't seen this one before. It's one of those where I found myself saying "OK, right about NOW would be a good time to start running..." (i.e. when the boats off the beach start tipping over).
After watching it a few times, the most terrifying thing to me is looking past the breaking wave in the immediate foreground, and noticing that the green horizon behind it is moving and has whitecaps. That's not a horizon - its the next part of the tsunami arriving, right behind the one you're seeing, and another right behind that, etc. The video clearly shows that at least in Thailand the tsunami did form cresting waves as it hit shore, like most people's popular conception of them, whereas the video from Sri Lanka (for example) showed it coming in more like a massive tide that just kept coming in without going out.
After watching it a few times, the most terrifying thing to me is looking past the breaking wave in the immediate foreground, and noticing that the green horizon behind it is moving and has whitecaps. That's not a horizon - its the next part of the tsunami arriving, right behind the one you're seeing, and another right behind that, etc. The video clearly shows that at least in Thailand the tsunami did form cresting waves as it hit shore, like most people's popular conception of them, whereas the video from Sri Lanka (for example) showed it coming in more like a massive tide that just kept coming in without going out.
