The video was taken at Kuji Port in the Iwate Prefecture and was provided by the Kamaishi Port Office, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT).
it’s crazy how from far away, the water doesn’t seem to be coming fast but when it comes closer to you you realize how fast the water is rushing in. scary
Imagine being one of those boat captains, seeing the size of that thing then realizing the only possible hope of you and your crew surviving is to charge head on into it. Balls of steel man, massive legends
Funny to imagine someone on the crew shouting "hold on to your butts" lmao. Jokes aside. Yeah its a miracle the ship didn't sunk carrying those planet sized balls of steel.
It’s quite wild that one of the safest place during tsunami is actually to be on a boat that is charging straight towards the wave. Props to those boat drivers. Not only they managed to survive, they also avoid becoming another wreckage that will add to destruction of the wave at the further end.
They saw death and destruction, and headed right for it. That would go against every instinct (but it’s the best/only option for any hope of survival).
It was very touching but heartbreaking hearing the people on shore shouting and cheering for the boat to stand firm as the wave came closer and closer and it was becoming very clear how dire the situation was becoming. You could hear how desperately they were all hoping the crew would make it despite knowing there was nothing they could do to help.
When you are further from shore the wave is smaller but faster and gradually when the wave comes closer and closer to shore it becomes bigger and a bit slower because (the depth changes) which ends up in destructive result. So the further the boat is from shore the better and it was definitely a smart decision to go face the wave to make the chance of survival higher.
For those wondering, those wave are massive in size and might be travelling close to 200-300kmph. As the video is recorded from a very high point and a far away, it seems the wave might be hardly moving unless it has approached the point close to the people recording. The point at which the wave was at when the video began was probably around 6-10 miles away from the people recording. That wave travelled 6-10 kms in less than 2 mins. Imagine that.
This is just obviously false. The wave was maybe a mile offshore when the video begins. You can see with your own eyes it doesnt start 6-10 miles away. Tsunami can travel up to 500 mph in deep ocean but they slow significantly as they approach land. I'd estimate the water is moving 30-40 mph in this video as it impacts land.
I never understand these tsunami videos. That wave was supposedly 130ft tall yet it’s looks shorter than the sea wall which is probably 30ft tall max judging by the boats.
@@airsoftdude36I thought tsunamis didn't have massive waves, rather water constantly creeping onto land with immense force, raising the sea level there consistently. Been a while since I read up on them, but I had the same as you.
my brother was visiting his son in Japan when the earthquake hit. Like most Americans he didn't speak or understand much Japanese but he knew the word tsunami and hearing it made his blood run cold He followed the people in the streets to a safe place and survived.
Whats really horrible about this is that that the terror we are feeling watching it on a screen is not even half as bad as the last feeling that around 20,000 people ever felt.
@Saquon Barkley Is The Man 26 Just because you don't care doesn't mean other people don't. Humans have what is called sympathy and it makes them care about things like this. I am assuming you don't have this but maybe it's just for this case. Perhaps you care about your family or pets? People may have stronger feelings for loved ones more than people they don't know in Japan but it still works more or less the same. You're point is never going to win against the majority of humanity so it's really pointless and it could potentially cause problems for you in real life if it hasn't already.
@@FriedFrenchFries you fucking rolled the dude witb facts😂 Good stuff man this dude is either a troll or simply lacks sympathy. No need to invest more energy in this dude than neccessary because atleast we care :)
The amount of force behind those waves is unimaginable. I spent many years on the ocean and its power is second to none. Most people are unable to even conceive of the power that water holds.
My friend from Sendai actually lost her dad in the Tsunami. He was a fisherman who went out one day and never came back. She was only 23 at the time. Can't imagine the heartbreak. Nature can be merciless.
@@Fiberglass_Insulation Age doesn't matter when it comes to loss. I was 31 when my Dad died and it was still rough on me. I know that I handled the situation a lot better than a lot of people do as well, since I work in the registration of births, deaths, and marriages, so I knew what would happen next and how to deal with the official business. Some of the people I have to help are often wrecked mentally, financially, and/or physically by the loss. Even three years on, I still sometimes get a bit of pain when I have to write 'deceased' next to a parent's name on a marriage certificate, especially when the couple getting married are under 40.
Hello from Japan. I was on the small ship in this video with my father i had much fear and origami. We had been fishing and we turn around when we heard of tsunami. As wave approach we say we not going to origami down with the ship. We had a miso soup and we go full throttle up the wall of water. My miso nearly tip over. But we survive much terrifying exprerience.
Tragic that so many lives were lost on that terrible day. The absolute power of nature can be seen in this 2-5min footage. Love and prayers to the great people of Japan ❤️🙏❤️
The scariest thing is realizing that it's not just a "wall" of water coming at you because a wall is generally quite thin. This was more like an army of water marching towards the shore with wave after wave pushing inland. So scary.
that's what makes tsunamis so destructive - the wave doesn't have particularly high amplitude, in fact in some cases is can be just a metre or two - but the wavelength can be several kilometres long - so you get this relentless flow smashing everything in its path
I remember being on the 13f in Akasaka, Tokyo. I had been in Japan a long time so knew what an earthquake felt like but this time was different. I thought at first it was a bomb and then I looked out the window and the few pools on top of the buildings across the street were splashing water back and forth. I looked to my right and saw fires starting and was still not sure it was an earthquake. When the second shock hit, I looked up at the ceiling and thought so this is how I die. The building was on rollers and I thought this is the end. There was a moment where it went silent. I ran out to the corridor and saw tiles all over. The elevator was not working so I ran to the stairs and down, the 1F was locked so I kicked it with my foot. I went outside and saw tiles and glass everywhere. I couldn't comprehend that this was an earthquake as they don't feel like this. This was a blast and hard up and down shaking as I've never felt. I'll never forget that Friday afternoon before 3pm. Time did stop.
yes, that's what many japanese and foreigners said, that it was different and also that it lasted sooo long, which had never happened before! Glad for you, that you made it!
Watching the waves crash into the city is crazy but the look back at the ocean and being able to tell that THERE'S STILL SO MUCH MORE WATER COMING! Now that, that's a whoooole 'nother level.
I live in Philippines, I was 11 when this happened. I remember every shows On TV got cancelled and it was all news throughout the whole day. I skipped school and saw the whole thing unfold live on screen. I remember seeing a boat with people on it tipped and the people fell off and was drag under the bridge by the waves, a car speeding trying to escape the waves went under in seconds, people climbing trucks etc. It was really terrifying. Then there's this Nuclear Melt Down crisis after the tsunami. I'm not Japanese nor lived in Japan but this is one of the events I won't forget. Rest and Peace to all souls lost in this disaster.
My God!!... My husband and I were in Japan on that terrible day. We lived in the city of Ina, Nagano state... A day to never forget... The deaths, the panic... The despair was great. God kept us... I'm sorry for everyone who died on that fateful day.
@@davidwoods1188 the smaller one is the one we see at the end. the larger one makes the first two waves, but is not on camera again. Both look to survive unless the current drags it to shore.
I was thinking "Turn into it!!" the whole time. Glad they did before it hit (the first boat did a better job at it though). Glad it looks like they made it
No, it isn’t. We have a specific word for that which is “Okidashi/沖出し”, which all the Japanese sailors definitely know. This word represents the teaching of our ancestors, who had known the countless number of old tsunami, to protect our ships from them and it means to push the ship toward the offshore immediately, because it is safer to do to survive than to escape to the high ground made of volcanic ash sediment and to abandon their own ships.
Here's a rough translation of the video. Since most of them have strong TOHOKU accent/dialect and due to the sound quality, I couldn't fully understand what they were talking about. (Their pronunciations are really different from standard Japanese in many parts.) I put the * mark for the parts where I couldn't understand or determine what they meant. 0:00 Hey, what's that? Oi, are, nanne? おい、あれ、何ね? 0:02 It's DANGEROUS!!! (He's yelling at the ships near the shore) Abunee zo! あぶねえぞー！ 0:04 Tsunami's coming!! Tsunami Kiteruzo! 津波来てるぞー！ 0:17 Whoa... Waa... わぁ… 0:18 All they can do is to head for the sea(or the wave) now. Umi(or Nami) sa heeru shika neewa, ado 海(波)さ入るしかねぇわ、あど。 0:19 All you can do is to head for the wave and keep your(ships') head stand! Nami sa hette adama taderu shika needo! 波さ入って頭立でるしかねぇど！ 0:23 No No No .... (Oh my, Oh my, Oh my...) Iya Iya Iya ... いやいやいや... 0:24 The direction, the direction! Muki, muki! 向き、向き！ 0:26 Keep standing the head(=the ship's tip)! THE HEAD!! Adama tadedoge adama!! 頭立でどげ頭ー！ 0:33 * gonna be taken away * !! * * mottegaretzo!! 持ってがれっつぉ！！ 0:38 Crossing (the wave) is the only way! Tsukkitteku shika neezo! 突っ切ってくしかねえぞ！ 0:40 Oh oh oh oh oh Uwawawawawa うわわわわわわわ 0:43 (The wave will be)High, don't get beaten! Takeezo, magennayo! 高ぇぞ、負げんなよ! 0:56 *, it's alright. *, daijobuda. *、大丈夫だ。 0:58 Oh, it's carried away! Oo, nagasareta! おぉー、流された！ 1:05 - 1:09 * 1:10 The direction is bad, the direction is bad! Muki wari, muki wari! 向き悪り、向き悪り！ 1:14 The wave is * so much from such a place, Look! Nami hottadokkara ippee * Are! 波ほったどっからいっぺぇ* あれ！ 1:17 * 1:19 Ahhhhhhh... aaaaaa... あー.... 1:22 The direction is bad. Muki wari. 向き悪りい。/ Ah, Stand (the tip) up!! Aa! Tadero! あー！立でろ！ 1:26 Stand, Ship! Stand! Tadero, fune, tadero! 立でろ、船！立でろ！ 1:33 Oh oh oh oh, if you don't go offshore a bit more, you'll be taken away! Arerere, mosukosu oki sa iganeba mottegarenga! あれれれ、もう少す沖さ行がねば持ってがれんが! 1:36 Rev(up the engine), rev! Fukase, fukase! ふかせ、ふかせ！ 1:37 It comes, it comes, it comes, it comes! Kitayo, kitayo, kitayo, kitayo! 来たよ、来たよ、来たよ、来たよ！ 1:41 Oh oh oh oh oh Uwawawawawa うわわわわわわわ 1:56 Now it's over around here. Kono hen wa owarissuneh. この辺は終わりっすねぇ。 1:59 *, here comes another shot! *, mou ippatsu kuruzo! *もう一発来るぞ！ 2:26 The people who were under there, *. Shita ni ita kotoka *. 下に居た子とか、*。
Thank you very much for taking your time to make such a wonderful detailed translation and for providing this interesting insights about japanese language and dialects. Appreciate it. 👍🏼
Agreed with the sentiments on display. It's hard to properly sympathise when we're viewing from the comfort of our homes, detached from the reality of such a terrifying spectacle that in real-time would've been one of the most horrific natural disasters witnessed in modern times. Your dialogue made our interaction of the 2D that little bit more personal of a 3D real world reality. Thank you.
I am Japanese. I'm sorry if this English sentence is strange. When I experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake, I was only 6 years old. I haven't experienced a tsunami, but I have experienced a big earthquake. At that time, when I came back from kindergarten, all the TV channels were reporting on the disaster. The next day and the next day, there were many victims' names at the bottom of the TV screen. When my mother's friend's name appeared on TV, her mother was crying to cling to the TV. Everything was shocking and unforgettable. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for the support we received from all over the world during the reconstruction. I'm really thankful to you.
It truly is unfathomable, the amount of energy required to push that much water at that speed from one point in a 360° area and have it travel that much distance.
Yuzo Kuwata, the captain of a fishing boat that took waves sideways, mentioned in a later interview, "I had no fear and was steering in a state of intense concentration. Since if I succumbed to fear, we would lose, I had to adopt a mindset of 'What is this, bring it on!' When we managed to avoid the waves and reached the open sea, I felt relieved. I thought we had won the battle."
Not the wave is the problem of a tsunami, it's the amount of water coming in for minutes into the land. And that's exactly the difference to a normal wave. A normal wave can also become very big and high, but without that amount of water pushing for minutes it's not as dangerous.
Normally waves are tidal. Most are wind driven. Tsunamis are a column of water moving at 550 mph from the ocean floor to the surface. When they inconter land...devastating
@@kerrystewart3145 you are right, but they don't hit the land with 550mph. Only on the ocean when it not visible on the water surface it is so fast. The tsunami gets slower when it hits the land. Problem is just the huge amount of water coming in for several minutes after the tsunami.
0:03 watch out! tsunami's coming! 0:27 make the ship vertical towards the tsunamis 0:33 otherwise ship will be swept away 0:58 that's being swept! 1:08 the angle toward the waves is not good 1:22 make it vertical! Make your boat vertical! 1:30 make it vertical! 1:33 (turn) a bit more,, 1:37 tsunami has come 1:57 it's the end, huh? *Notice* The translation might be inaccurate because of strong Tohoku accent: I'm from Kyusyu
Imagine a girl holding hands with her mother and running away from the tsunami. However, the mother failed to escape and was swept away by the tsunami.And the girl still can't forget the feeling that her mother's hand was moving away. This was just a few minutes. And that girl was me. I wanna say that you should give love to someone who you love, for there is no guarantee that they will be alive tomorrow. どうか天国で安らかに眠っていますように。
@@TheRipperxX9 Insecure people that assert their intelligence on trivial things and treat it as common sense to feed their own ego are hilarious. It's not hard to understand, it's more that people dont need to (and don't) think about it.
Ive seen footage at the time from a boat a bit farther from shore. They just went up and down the wave as it came and were completely unharmed, and that was scary already
I remember watching this unfold live on the news. I was 13 and couldn’t have been any less bothered because I didn’t really have a concept of how fragile life really was at the time. Re watching these videos years later bring a constant chill to my body knowing how many people lost their lives in those moments.
What are you and 1000 people really admitting to? You're accidentally portraying yourself as a bad person. As children, we view life as incredibly fragile and get very sad about sad things, and then we have to grow up and and accept that death happens. Sorry, but I know you know it's true: being overly emotional about things is NOT viewed as adult, it's viewed as... Yes... BEING CHILDISH. What kind of parents did you have that raised such a selfish child? You're not being a good person, you're compensating for your childhood.
This was just the first wave. The really big one came about two minutes after this. There was another video on RU-vid taken from the same rooftop that shows it hitting
After 10 years, I'm still in shock when I see these videos. At the time, I'd never seen something so unbelievable on video before, and I still haven't since. It looks like something out of a movie. Still gives me chills to this day.
it really is something to watch it slowly build up. first the area the waves crash into get bigger and bigger.. then the waves themselves come closer and closer!
Holy crap. That boat driver needs a medal he hit it at the perfect angle so he didn’t capsize. That would be a terrifying situation. Edit: they both did well, the larger one survived because it was larger, and because of that it’s ok to hit it straight on.
It’s strange I always imagined that tsunamis would be fast and menacing. Buts it’s almost like this slow escalation, where unless you’re experienced don’t seem that dangerous in the beginning.
@@Atharvashukla123 this is taller than a house, you can tell because of long the water takes to fall down when the waves break. it looks like its falling in slow motion
I was 7 and had my exam on that after giving my exam i came home when i saw my father watching news of tsunami on television my father unfolded whole story back then and i am very sympathized for all japanese people for what they edure...in 1945 and then 2011
Holy fuck, I’d never seen footage of this till now... Tsunamis are the most terrifying thing in this world, Rest In Peace to all the people who lost their lives
It wasn't over for those ship captains when they bravely crested those waves. Don't forget that the real danger comes after the wave, with the rushing tide that pushes everything inland, and then recedes and sucks debris out to sea. If those captains survived, it was a very long day.
@@Rayski_ exactly though... why say Jesus if you are not a Christian? There are literally millions of other words you could use. Y'alls minds are so twisted its not even funny.
@@lasker78 Well since RU-vid saw fit to delete my reply. Try googling "put to sea in a storm" and read the report on the US navy sending ships out into a hurricane. It does a fair job of answering your question.
They probably saved their craft by doing so; those waves destroyed anything moored in that harbor. People used to take everything out of their boat and sink them for big storms. When the storm subsides, they raise the craft and rebuild. Nature is so awesome.
The one who was sailing the boat was actually smart, he knew that the only way to have better chances of surviving was going straight to the wave before it "breaks" (don't know how to say it in English, hope you have understood me)
I remember being in Los Angeles when this happened. Hearing about the news of the quake, and the tsunami, but shortly after about the fukushima-daiichi reactor. My brain was torn between knowing so many had already passed from the tsunami, and being scared about a Chernobyl level event in my life time (I was born a few years after Chernobyl). I watched the news about the reactors overheating, about the men and women who refused to leave the reactor because they did not want it to melt down, and the resultant exclusion zone that was created after. I finally took a breath, knowing that the worst possibility was, at least for that time, averted. We had some minor tsunami warnings on the Los Angeles coast, but nothing more than what we called "mermaid farts" - It was kind of our way of processing the horror. And then about a week later, I attended a club, Malediction Society. I remember sitting outside on the roof top as a rare March rain storm came in. I vaguely remember someone saying "Hey, you know that's radioactive rain from Fukushima, right?" and i was just like... "Yeah... I know. It feels like normal rain." I don't know what possessed me to stand out there for so long, getting drenched with my cloves, reflecting on it with the distant sound of the club music going on in the background. I just felt peaceful acceptance that the world had changed. In part, I suppose there was some numbness probably. Not many years earlier, as a young teen, I watched on live TV the brutal death of nearly 2,000 people at TWC, seeing people jump to their deaths. It was a shift in my perspective at that moment just as it had been in 2001, right at that moment in 2011, and then again, in 2020 - 2021. The processing of such large scale trauma, and grief, is a curious thing. For some it becomes a deep wound that never heals, a constant reminder. For others, it's a wound that becomes a scar, that becomes a hard callous, over time. I grieve, and I reflect on those who lost their lives in 2011 in my reflection of those events. Just as I reflect on 9-11, and 2020. There've been so many pivotal moments in humanity in just these last 23 years, a little more than half my life. What I fear, deep inside, is how many more there will be in the next 23 years. That is what haunts me more than the events of the past. Anyways, I don't expect anyone to actually read this, but, I felt like I had to write it. To process some of it. I don't care what religions people stake their creeds in, if any at all, but for the love of hope, of humanity, I hope we will enter a calm era, at least for these next few decades. Take care, whomever has read this far, and love everyone you can. Hate is not an energy that should be expended in these times, and anger should only be used to move you forward in a positive direction.
When you look at the ocean, the horizon is roughly 3 miles away. So the waves look like they’re not moving in so fast, but in reality they’re traveling at great speeds!
@@nameunknown007 I estimate the observer height to be, on the conservative side, 30 - 60 feet. it is probably more, which gives a distance to the horizon of 6-10 miles
@@chrisdeanjames2898 then you just don’t write 6 miles right without any context. Add the clause that you’re adding up some elevated observer height and how much. If there is no clause people would assume it’s usual average human height at the beach. And if you compare that red pole against the boat and the trees height, and the two story building on the left, they look like they are at least at a 8 to 10 stories building elevation. Which is 100+ feet. Which gives 12+ miles view. But you also see the waves are negligible at that distance unless they are super massive height, which is not in this case. So you don’t see it unless it’s somewhere closer.
It's not just a wave, it's all the water that follows it up ,the sheer terror of anybody seeing this coming and knowing there's no escape brings great sadness to my heart for those lost souls,
That captain who took the wave head on did the most logical thing you could do in that situation. I don't know if survived or not but he was definitely a fighter!
They're not any faster than normal waves. It's just a bigger wave and lots more water behind it. I've heard people claim that tsunamis move at over 500 km/h and I call BS on that. It wasn't moving any faster than a person could run.
@@taekwondotime you clearly aren't into seismology or have seen the Nova PBS documentary: Surviving the Tsunami because in the ocean the water disturbed by an underwater earthquake can cause waves rising up to speeds of 500km per hour that when nearing shallower waters slow down & become more destructive in their wake. Btw do your research before naively saying something you don't have a clue about...
1:40 is a fantastic demonstration of how a tsunami wave doesn’t have to be tall to be destructive… it’s barely taller than those concrete barriers, but the volume of water behind it is simply immense.
