#Japan #Earthquake: First Tsunami Waves Hit the Coast Only 9 Minutes After the Quake

Just heard it on NHK World News. Japanese experts had predicted that a large earthquake in the Tohoku region would cause 7 to 8-meter (23 to 26-foot) tsunami, which would arrive onshore in about an hour.

Instead, 14 to 15-meter waves arrived in 9 minutes.

The tsunami drills, that Japanese citizens have dutifully done all these years, were not designed for big waves that arrived in such a short time. In some of the harder hit towns up in northern inlets, people who ran for their lives on foot survived, while those who tried to escape by car perished, stuck in the traffic.

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