Amazing tsunami photos surface

[Xmann]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/02/24/tsunami.digital.photos.ap/index.html

half way down the page is a link to all the photos.  amazing but haunting.

[ATB]

Yeah saw this. Absolutely haunting...

[Caine]

this was reported on the local news the other night.  just an odd and sad chain of events.  

they say that even if the two had run at the first sign of the wave, it would not have been enough to save them.

[Jeff]

What really struck me odd about that situation is how few animals died in it, and how many went for higher ground well in advance of the wave. That is weird.

[Xmann]

ya Jeff it just goes to prove animals can sense danger and changes in the earth.  truely amazing.

[leo8877]

It's hard for me to gauge how large those waves are.  Without a reference, they don't seem too large.  I know they were, but I just don't see it in those pictures.

[disarm]

It's hard for me to gauge how large those waves are.  Without a reference, they don't seem too large.  I know they were, but I just don't see it in those pictures.

actually, the waves were not incredibly tall (~30 feet i think)...not much taller than those that regulary hit the shores of beaches around the world.  the problem with a tsunami wave is the sheer amount of water behind the breaking front.  that 30 foot wall goes far back into the ocean instead of existing just at the breaking point like a normal wave.  the tsunami waves were just an overwhelming amount of water that carried an incredible amount of force with it.

[Ypmur]

Yeah, Tsunami waves don't necessarily have to be tall to be destructive, rather they get their force from underneath and as it advances, it sort of assimilates all the water around it, which is why one of the first signs of a tsunami is a receding shoreline.

[zinckiwi]

I was in Phuket on Boxing Day (arrived a few hours after the event) and can say that there's a good chance that if they ran right away, they'd be just fine. It's astounding how short a distance inland you have to go before there is no damage whatsoever.

[Xmann]

i dont know, you look at the one photo with the two boats in it, that wave is freakin huge.  nothing like what you would imagine or think a tsunami might be, but still huge.
anyone catch that tsunami show on Discovery a month or so ago and hear the story of those fisherman who got caught in it.  if i remember correctly, their boat was pushed on top of a wave that was so high it went above the tree lines.  couple hundred feet if i remember.  now i'd like to see a photo of that!