If you didn't catch the excellent Japan's Killer Quake segment of PBS' always-fascinating science documentary series NOVA -- it premiered on Wednesday night -- please check your local listings for encores over the weekend, or watch it online on the PBS website. It's incredible, with much footage that I hadn't seen (and I watched a lot!) and a clear, concise explanation of the wheres and whys of the gigantic quake and subsequent tsunami. You will better understand the geography of Japan, and you'll also come away awestruck with the extent of the damage and the implications it could have for a long-predicted similar seismic event on America's West Coast.
Particularly shocking, I thought, were the revelations about the excellent preparations that Japan had put in place prior to the quake -- 30 foot sea walls, for example -- which failed because the ground itself subsided ten feet, making them ineffective. No matter what man tries to anticipate, Nature is fully capable of terrible surprises.
Definitely try to catch this excellent hour!
1 comment:
I stumbled across this Nova special today On Demand and watched it immediately. A lot of the tsunami footage we've seen before, but there was a ton of stuff showing the Earthquake itself, which lasted an astonishing 5 minutes. What a horror for those poor people!
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