uncle arnie wrote:

On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 17:46, Harveyat8c43z0 posted to
rec.radio.shortwave: %MM

Just Sleep on the second floor / Back;
- You'll be fine..


They said 10 metres in some places, that's 32 feet. Maybe the 3rd or 4th
story, but it's a problem in the daytime too: if the bay empties, everyone
needs to know that they better get to that higher ground!

Some tall resort hotels were completely wiped off the face of the earth
by the wave. Nobody had thought of building them to withstand a wall of
water. Not only that, most of the natives lived in shacks and other
poorly built houses, which turned into all that debris. There isn't much
place to run from a 30 foot wave if you're on flat ground. Many islands
in the Nicobar (sp?) chain were completely covered by the wave because
they're so flat; as many as 30,000 people had no higher ground to run
to. Those islands are now uninhabited. Radio Australia has stopped
giving a total death toll, at 0200 UTC they said that 95,000 people just
in Indonesia were killed. The total death toll is probably around
250,000-and that's not counting the tens of thousands who will never be
found because they were washed out to sea.




Thanks for the link. Everyone travelling to a seacoast should have basic
info about what to and signs to watch for re tsunamis.

On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 07:33, Harveyat8c43z0 posted
to rec.radio.shortwave: %MM

. Then again, all the video footage I've seen on
American TV shows the ocean gently lapping on the beach, then suddenly a
huge wave comes out of nowhere and washes over everything.

Tsunami are seismicly generated, very low, and very long; the wave
period is in the 1,000 second range,
instead of 10 -20 seconds like normal sea swells.
-So, in a Tsunami, the sea level receded very Slowly, leaving the
normal wave action on top. Perceived Sea level drops.
Then the wave front of the Tsunami comes in, and the water goes in the
reverse ( inland direction )
for an equal duration.

if you go HERE

http://jlgolson.blogspot.com/2004/12/tsunami-video.html

- and look for the sri lanka video taken from a hotel over a swimming
pool, looking oout to sea, you can see the wave coming in.

- Probably the reason everyone had their video cameras ready was
because, for ten minutes prior to that,
The " Sea" had been " going out"