New documentary about the 2011 Japan quake & tsunami

April 19, 2011 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Let’s not forget to pray for Japan.

Yes, it is true that life goes on, but lest we forget too quickly about the catastrophe in Japan last month and the 25,000 or more men, women, and children who lost their lives in the tsunami, I am posting a newly released documentary of what happened that is essentially a chilling montage of video footage for the hardest hit areas.

The thing that really made an impression on me is that because Japan is quite hilly and mountainous, there were high places the people could go to escape the towering wall of water that slammed relentlessly inland for miles (assuming that they left soon enough and got there fast enough — as we know, many did not). But try to imagine what would happen in a low-lying coastal area, such as, say, Florida, whose average elevation above sea level is just 100 feet. With no high ground available (no significantly high hills, much less mountains), where could people flee to escape an incoming tsunami? And what if, in such a nightmare scenario, an earthquake-triggered tsunami came rolling in from the Atlantic that was significantly higher than the one which recently hit Japan? Is it possible that the entire State of Florida could be completely inundated in a matter of minutes?