Reply #7: Warnings were of little use following the quake and resulting tsunami...

[hayu_lol]

The quake was something like 80 miles offshore. The tsunami was immediately formed and set in motion--speed of this tsunami was estimated at 500 miles a hour. The initial wall of water was about 50 feet high(15 M).

Simple to calculate how useless the warnings would have been...people had to have been stunned by the ferocity of the 9.1+ quake. No warning possible for that. At best, officials would have only had about 10/15 minutes to sound the alarms--provided that they still worked after the quake. 10 minutes, even if the alarms had gone off, gives people just enough time to look at each other and wonder what is coming.

Thats why the death toll is so high...people had almost no chance to get to higher ground. Matter of fact, the reactor buildings were almost 15 feet UNDER water at one point. Amazing that the buildings remained as intact as they did.

When I was taking college geology back in '75...the top of the Richter scale was 8. That was considered TOTAL DESTRUCTION. Since a 9.anything is at least twice an 8...it is a wonder that anything at all was left standing. Death toll will probably reach 40,000 before too long.