Although I like to conceive of a tsunami as a giant, cresting wave, in watching the footage of Japan it really seems to be more of an unstoppable flood. The waves are big, but not how I imagined them. (I noticed the same thing after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami). This led me to search for pictures of the biggest waves, which led me to Lituya Bay, Alaska. The record there is a wave that washed away trees 1,720 feet above sea level. After reading more closely, the actual wave, according to a witness, was a “mere” 100 feet tall, and its energy sufficed to take it 1,720 feet up a hillside.
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