Japan's tsunami exposes weakness as California awaits earthquake

This extraordinary footage of the tsunami hitting the coast of Japan on March 11 has been doing the viral rounds this week. It has been billed as the "most impressive tsunami video yet". I'm not sure that "impressive" is an appropriate word to use in a context where an estimated 21,000 people lost their lives. But the video is one of the more palatable if only because the cameraman survived and it apparently does not show lives being lost.

What it does show is the raw power of the series of tsunamis that grow stronger over almost 10 minutes, as the blackening ocean surges over the sea walls with sickening speed. It clearly demonstrates the power of a natural disaster of this kind as the surges sweep in, suck backward causing whirlpools before sweeping in again. It also illustrates how easy it would have been to have been caught out by the dangerous waves which seemed benign at first. Not everyone watching this close to the sea wall would have been as lucky as this cameraman.