6 September 2021 - A SMART GIRL WITH FORESIGHT

 

A SMART GIRL

 WITH FORESIGHT

 

G'day folks,

Tilly Smith, a 10-year-old girl from Surrey, England, was spending Christmas vacation of 2004 with her family on a beach in Phuket, Thailand. As she and her family walked along the sand, Tilly noticed something strange. The water was bubbling over and had become frothy. It was nothing that caused any heads to turn but worried Tilly immensely.

She recalled a lesson she’d received in school about tsunamis only a few weeks earlier. The class was shown a video of the ocean just prior to a tsunami and it was overtaken with froth. Tilly watched the water on the beach and told her parents that the water was showing signs of an oncoming tsunami. Her parents were dismissive at first but after her insistence continued for a few more minutes, her father relented and took her to the resort's security personnel. 

 

He told them of his daughter’s fear, a theory which was corroborated seconds later by another guest who informed them that Sumatra had been hit with an earthquake earlier that day. Within moments, and less than 10 minutes from when Tilly first noticed the bubbles, the hotel’s security staff were evacuating the beach. The ground floor of the resort had just barely been cleared when the tidal wave hit, decimating a sizable portion of the hotel. The 2004 tsunami resulted in over 200,000 deaths across the area. In Tilly’s hotel, though there were numerous injuries, there were no fatalities thanks to her insistence and swift action.

 

Clancy's comment: Go, Tilly! Sadly, I lost close friends in that Tsunami. 

I'm ...

 

8 March 2019 - THE MIRACLE PINE OF JAPAN

THE MIRACLE 

PINE OF JAPAN

G'day folks,

 

Of the 70,000 trees that once lined the shore of Rikuzentakata, Japan, only one remained after the 2011 tsunami.

The tree quickly became an icon of hope in the devastation, where about 80% of the homes in Rikuzentakata were lost in the waters. Unfortunately, although the nearly 90-foot-tall, 200-year-old tree lived through the floods, it couldn’t survive the resulting saline content in its earth, and 18 months later it died. However, a sculpture erected in 2013 returned the tree permanently to the shore, with its trunk coated and formed over a metal mold and its leaves and branches synthetically remade. 

Clancy's comment: Good for them. Tsunami's certainly are unforgiving and mean beasts.

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23 February 2019 - JAPAN’S TSUNAMI STONES

JAPAN’S 

TSUNAMI STONES 

G'day folks,

Hundreds of tsunami stones stand along the coast of Japan, stark warnings and reminders of the devastating impact of the country’s all too frequent tidal waves. The oldest were erected more than 600 years ago; some have been washed away by ever more powerful waves.

Japan has borne the brunt of some of the worst tsunamis in history. In 1707, a tsunami caused by the Hōei earthquake killed more than 5,000 people. The Great Yaeyama Tsunami of 1771 killed 8,439 people on Ishigaki Island and 2,548 more on Miyako. In 1896, the Sanriku earthquake sent two tsunamis crashing into coastal settlements, destroying some 9,000 homes and killing at least 22,000. More recently, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011 left 15,894 dead, 6,156 injured, and 2,546 missing.

Despite this tragic history, it’s proved all too easy for later generations to forget the warnings of the past. That’s where the tsunami stones come in. Dotted along the coast and ranging in height from 2 feet to 10 feet tall, these flat stones are especially common on Japan’s northeastern shores, often marking the highest point of a tsunami’s reach.

Each stone bears an inscription, although some are now too worn to read. Some act as monuments, giving death tolls from past tsunamis or marking mass graves of the victims. Others offer more direct advice. A tsunami stone in Kesennuma, a city in the Miyagi Prefecture, reads: “Always be prepared for unexpected tsunamis. Choose life over your possessions and valuables.”

 One particularly well-documented tsunami stone stands in the village of Aneyoshi on Japan’s northeastern coast. Aneyoshi had endured two devastating tsunamis, one in 1896 and another in 1933. The stone was placed shortly after the 1933 tsunami, a four-foot-high marker located just above the tsunami’s highest reach. It reads: “High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants. Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”

When the stone was placed, the remaining residents of Aneyoshi—there were only four—moved uphill for good. Heeding the advice of the tsunami stone, they moved above the reach of the last tsunami, which undoubtedly saved them from being devastated once again in the tsunamis of 1960 and 2011.

Clancy's comment: The devastation caused by a Tsunami is included in one of my books - Pa Joe's Place. 

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