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Increasingly there s trufrustran and anger at the united states, european powers for not imposing some sort of no-fly zone here. it s almost reminiscent of the situation of the kurds after the 1991 gulf war when saddam hussein was able to push the kurds back and reimpose his authority on much of the country. there s a concern that the same scenario is at work here, that moammar gadhafi will extend his authority all the way to the eastern border of libya. and that has many people here terrified. ben wedeman, thanks very much. we ll stay on top of it with you. ben wedeman in libya. tsunamis, we re going to get back to japan. tsunamis are rare events. it takes that earth shattering event literally to set one off. we ll see you the science, anatomy, if you well, of a tsunami when we come back. [ woman announcing ] every subaru is responsibly built in a zero landfill plant. ....
Damage. in fact, if you look at this picture, it looked like anymore mall day, but look at this picture in northern japan and the damage there is monumental. the known death toll in the hundreds. it is certain to clichmb. that was 8.9 magnitude and that is the strongest earthquake in more than 100 years. water has no business being here, ali. this is debris, cars, houses, just slammingk against the coast and going inland as far as several miles. one always wonders if you don t have experience with this how much damage can do, and we have seen example after example of this. this police in the coastal city of sendai say they have found as many as 300 bodies in the tsunami s wake. this is 50 miles to the southwest where a dam has broken and 1,800 homes by the government s count have washed away. this is as we said the biggest earthquake that japan has ever recorded. this is inside of a building and i believe this is an office ....
Water can rush through it sort of like a pier on the beach, and have the more solid information higher up. this, of course, works only as long as the tsunami is not bigger that you expected. if it s bigger, of course, your building is eventually going to collapse. what about the power of the water as it rushes in? that has to have a huge impact and determines whether or not your structure can withstand the force. that s dedefein dependent on water depths as it rushes in. as you ve seen in the videos, the white waters on the horizon approaching, and debris-laden water rushing in, typically the water is moving at the speed of the wave is moving, which is digit to what you witness when you go swimming on the beach because there the water is moving slower than the wave is moving. this is important. i ve had tweets about this. professor lou, help us understand this. ....
It s a different scale all together. the scale rises exponentially, of course. we re talking about 7, 7.5, that s something significant. when you go from 7 to an 8, you re not talking about a 5%, 10%, tenfold increase. when you get from a 7 to almost a 9, almost a 1,000 time increase as far as shaking is concerned, so, yes, this is one of the most the fifth largest earthquake in recorded history. the largest earthquake folks in japan have seen in recorded history for them. the previous one going back to 1707, october of 1707, there was an 8.6 in this general area. guess what happened after that? mt. fuji erupted after the 8.6300 years ago. great to have you here. thanks so much for that. this exponential scale, it s not a sliding scale. the difference between 7.9 and 8. 9, hn hundreds of times mor powerful. the building codes are so strict that they protect people from the earthquake. when you add a tsunami into the ....
A three-foot tsunami wave can be much more devastating than a 15 foot normal wave. professor lou? i guess the difference is really in tsunami you have very strong currents and that carries a lot of momentum of forces which will be impact on the structures. i might also add another consideration is the foundation issues. when tsunami comes, it can carry, erode building foundations. that will also cause the collapse of the buildings. okay. let s talk about japan. which has worked itself, professor fritz, you worked in japan. you ve seen how they do things. they built around earthquake protection. do they have, particularly in these rural areas in the north, have sufficient tsunami protection? i was fortunate to visit the sendai area in 2009 and was really impressed. best prepared in the world. they have very good signage, evacuation signs where ....