Foytong Tsunami S161

Analysis of Tsunami Flow Velocities during
the March 2011 Tohoku, Japan, Tsunami

Piyawat Foytong,a) Anat Ruangrassamee,b) Gaku Shoji,c) Yu Hiraki,d)
and Yoshiyuki Ezurad)
The March 2011 Tohoku, Japan, tsunami caused severe damage to many
buildings, bridges, and lifelines along the Pacific coast of Japan. To analyze
its effects on structures, the tsunami flow velocity and the tsunami flow depth
are needed to estimate the force acting on structures. Videos recording tsunami
flows are available on many websites. Ten cases of tsunami flow velocities and
flow directions are analyzed from videos by estimating the movement distances
of observed objects. The analyzed tsunami flow velocities are 3–5 m/s in
Kamaishi City, 2 m/s in Ofunato City, 3–6 m/s in Kesennuma City pffiffiffiffiffiand
1.5pm/s
ffiffiffiffiffi in Iwaki City. The analyzed velocities fall in the range of 1.0 gh to
1.5 gh. A case study of tsunami simulation is performed to estimate the velocity
in Kesennuma City. At the same locations as the recorded videos, the tsunami
flow velocities from the simulation agree the velocities from recorded videos.
[DOI: 10.1193/1.4000128]
INTRODUCTION
The March 2011 Tohoku, Japan, tsunami caused severe damage to many buildings,
bridges, and lifelines along the Pacific coast of Japan. About 20,000 people were killed or
missing (JMA 2011). After the earthquake occurrence on 11 March 2011, the tsunami attacked
cities within a half hour (JMA 2011). Kesennuma City was one of the hardest hit areas, with
more than 1,200 people killed and about 8,500 buildings collapsed (Iwate Prefecture 2012).
To analyze effects of tsunamis on structures, the tsunami flow velocity and the tsunami
flow depth are needed to estimate the tsunami hydrodynamic force acting on structures.
(CCH 2000, FEMA 55 2000, Yeh 2007, Lukkunaprasit et al. 2009). After major tsunami
events, several researchers reported tsunami heights along coastlines from field survey
(Fritz et al. 2006a, DPRI 2006, Tsuji et al. 2006, Bapat and Murty 2008, The 2011 Tohoku
Earthquake Tsunami Joint Survey Group 2011). However, reported information on tsunami
velocities on land is scarce. Fritz et al. (2006b) analyzed tsunami flow velocities from the
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami by using videos recorded by survivors in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
The particle image velocimetry analysis was applied to rectify video images. The video
frames were transformed by using direct linear transformation. Tsunami flow velocities
in Banda Aceh were estimated at about 2–5 m/s. Fritz et al. (2012) analyzed the tsunami
a)
Lecturer, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand
b)
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
c)
Associate Professor, Dept. of Engineering Mechanics and Energy, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
d)
Graduate Student, Dept. of Engineering Mechanics and Energy, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
S161
Earthquake Spectra, Volume 29, No. S1, pages S161–S181, March 2013; © 2013, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
S162 P. FOYTONG ET AL.
current velocities and measured the tsunami height in the March 2011 Tohoku, Japan,
tsunami in the Kesennuma Bay by using videos recorded by survivors. The particle
image velocimetry analysis was applied to rectify the video images. The tsunami heights
were measured by terrestrial laser scanning based on light detection and ranging
(LiDAR). The tsunami current velocities were estimated as 3–11 m/s. The maximum tsunami
height was 9 m. Koshimura and Hayashi (2012) analyzed the tsunami flow velocity in Natori
City and Onagawa City during the March 2011 Japan tsunami by processing videos. In Natori
City, the aerial video is analyzed to estimate tsunami flow velocity by rectifying with iden-
tified ground control points through two-dimensional projective transformation. The tsunami
flow velocity was estimated as 6 m/s. In Onagawa City, the tsunami flow velocity is estimated
from a video. The flow velocity was estimated as 6.3 m/s. EERI (2011) reported the tsunami
flow velocity in Sendai, using videos recorded on a helicopter; the average velocities were
6.7 m/s for the bore traveling in the Natori River and 6.3 m/s for a case on farmland.
Videos recording tsunami flows on land during the March 2011 Tohoku, Japan, tsunami
are available on various websites. In this study, tsunami flow velocities on land are estimated
from videos by estimating movement distances of observed objects in Kamaishi City,
Ofunato City, Kesennuma City, and Iwaki City. The locations where velocities are analyzed
and the direction of flows are also presented. Flow depths can be estimated in some cases.
The relation between the tsunami flow velocity and flow depth is compared with proposed
formulations in past studies. Since the observation on tsunami flow velocities is limited, it is
worth conducting a tsunami simulation to obtain flow velocities. A case study of tsunami
simulation was performed to estimate the tsunami flow velocity in Kesennuma City.
METHOD FOR ESTIMATING TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY

Video frames are selected from videos according to three criteria: (1) movement track of
objects should be perpendicular to the direction of a camera, (2) the observed object should
flow close to and parallel to the object with known dimensions as illustrated in Figure 1, and
(3) the observed object should flow with the same velocity as the tsunami. The locations
where videos were taken are determined with the aid of Google Street View.
Figure 1. Definition of terms used to determine velocities.

ANALYSIS OF TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITIES DURING THE MARCH 2011 TOHOKU, JAPAN, TSUNAMI S163
The dimensions can be determined by measurement in Google Earth or satellite images.

Two high-resolution satellite images are used for Kamaishi City and Kesennuma City. The
satellite image of Kamaishi City was taken on 5 May 2010 by the GeoEye-1 satellite, with a
resolution of 0.5 m. For Kesennuma City, the satellite image was taken on 22 April 2009 by
QuickBird satellite, with a resolution of 0.6 m. The error of the measurement in the satellite
images is considered equal to the resolution. Therefore, the measurement error is 0.5 m and
0.6 m for the measurement in Kamaishi City and Kesennuma City, respectively. The tsunami
flow velocity can be computed by Equation 1.
Movement distance
V elocity ¼
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;e1;62;542 (1)
Time between two frames
VIDEOS USED TO DETERMINE FLOW VELOCITIES

Videos were recorded using handheld video cameras by survivors and made available on
the Internet. Eight of the available videos were selected based on the criteria stated above.
Due to copyright concerns, still images representing the key content in the videos are pre-
sented hereafter. The locations of all cases are shown in Figure 2.
Ten cases are analyzed to estimate the tsunami flow velocity as listed in Table 1. There
are four cases in Kamaishi City, one case in Ofunato City, four cases in Kesennuma City, and
Figure 2. Locations of cities where videos were recorded (Google Earth 2011).
Table 1. Cases for analysis of tsunami flow velocities
Coordinates
Elapsed time of
Case No. Location Latitude Longitude moving objects (s)
1 39.27454 141.88876 1.3
2 39.27498 141.88818 0.8
Kamaishi, Iwate
3 39.27486 141.88825 0.6
4 39.27512 141.88961 3.6
5 Ofunato, Iwate 39.05628 141.72298 1.5
6 38.89893 141.57822 1.2
7 38.89876 141.57815 1.4
Kesennuma, Miyagi
8 38.90754 141.58001 1.9
9 38.89893 141.57822 1.4
10 Iwaki, Fukushima 36.91204 140.79252 4.3
Figure 3. Cases in Kamaishi City (Google Earth 2011).
one case in Iwaki City, as shown in Figures 3, 4, 5, and 6, respectively. In Kesennuma City,
Cases 6 and 9 are at the same location.
ESTIMATION OF TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY
KAMAISHI CITY
There are four cases in Kamaishi City, as shown in Figure 3. In Case 1, three cars flowed
in front of a warehouse from Point 1 to Point 2, as shown in Figure 7a. The flow direction is
perpendicular to the shoreline, as shown in Figure 7b. The length of the warehouse is mea-
sured from the GeoEye-1 satellite image, as in Figure 7c. The measured length is 5.3 m, and
Figure 4. Case in Ofunato City (Google Earth 2011).
Figure 5. Cases in Kesennuma City (Google Earth 2011).
the time that three cars flowed from Points 1 to 2 is 1.3 s. Thus, the tsunami flow velocity of
Case 1 is estimated to be 4.1 m/s.
For Case 2, the tsunami flowed in a parking area, as shown in Figure 8a. The flow direc-
tion is perpendicular to the shoreline, as in Figure 8b. The time that the wave front passed the
lane marking 1 in Figure 8a to the lane marking 2 is 0.8 s. The distance between the lane
markings is measured from the GeoEye-1 satellite image as 2.5 m, as shown in Figure 8c.
Hence, the tsunami flow velocity in Case 2 is estimated to be 3.1 m/s.
The tsunami flowed past an ATM building from Point 1 to Point 2 in 0.6 s, as shown in
Figure 9a. The flow direction is quite perpendicular to the shoreline, as shown in Figure 9b.
The movement distance is considered from the width of the ATM building, measured from
Figure 6. Case in Iwaki City (Google Earth 2011).
Figure 7. (a) Movement of observed object in Case 1, (b) flow direction (Google Earth 2011),
and (c) measurement from satellite image, details of Case 1 in Kamaishi City.
the GeoEye-1 satellite image as 3.0 m, as shown in Figure 9c. The tsunami flow velocity for
Case 3 is estimated to be 5.0 m/s.
For Case 4, the tsunami flowed past the building, as shown in Figure 10a. The flow
direction is shown in Figure 10b. In Case 4, the time that the debris flowed from Point
1 to Point 2 is 3.6 s. The building length is 9.7 m as measured from the GeoEye-1 satellite
image in Figure 10c. Hence, the tsunami flow velocity of this case is estimated to be 2.7 m/s.
OFUNATO CITY
A car flowed from the first pole at Point 1 to the second pole at Point 2, as in Figure 11a.
The tsunami flowed in the direction perpendicular to the shoreline, as shown in Figure 11b.
The movement distance is the distance between two poles, and the distance between two
poles is estimated by the known width of the moving car. Hence, the distance between
two poles can be estimated as 3.2 m. The time between Point 1 to Point 2 is 1.5 s. The
tsunami flow velocity is estimated as 2.1 m/s.
KESENNUMA CITY
There are four cases in Kesennuma City. The dimensions were estimated by measurement
in the QuickBird satellite image with a resolution of 0.5 m. For Case 6, a white truck flowed
past a building from Point 1 to Point 2 in 1.2 s, as shown in Figure 12a. The tsunami flow
direction is parallel to shoreline, as shown in Figure 12b. The building width was measured
from the QuickBird satellite image as 7.0 m in Figure 12c. Therefore, the tsunami flow velo-
city of this case is estimated to be 5.8 m/s.
The location of Case 7 is close to the location of Case 6. In Case 7, a car flowed from
Point 1 to Point 2 past the house in 1.4 s, as shown in Figure 13a. The tsunami flow direction
is the same as Case 6, as shown in Figure 13b. The house width is measured from the Quick-
Bird satellite image as 6.8 m in Figure 13c. Hence, the tsunami flow velocity of Case 7 is
estimated to be 4.9 m/s.
For Case 8, the debris flowed past the last bay of a warehouse from Point 1 to Point 2 in
1.9 s, as shown in Figure 14a. The tsunami flow direction is parallel to the shoreline, as
shown in Figure 14b. The bay width of the warehouse is estimated as 5.7 m by the satellite
image in Figure 14c. The tsunami flow velocity is estimated to be 3.0 m/s.
The location of Case 9 is the same as that of Case 6. A bag flowed past a building from
Point 1 to Point 2 in 1.4 s, as shown in Figure 15a. The tsunami flowed to the South, as in
Figure 15b. The estimated building width is 7.0 m, measured from the QuickBird satellite
image in Figure 15c. The tsunami flow velocity of Case 9 is estimated to be 5.0 m/s.
Figure 11. (a) Movement of observed object in Case 5 and (b) flow direction (Google Earth
2011), details of Case 5 in Ofunato City.
and (c) measurement from satellite image, details of Case 6 in Kesennuma City.
IWAKI CITY
In Case 10, the debris flowed underneath two bridge decks from Point 1 to Point 2 in
4.3 s, as shown in Figure 16a. The tsunami flow direction is along the river, as in Figure 16b.
The estimated distance between two bridge decks is 6.3 m, measured from Google Earth, as
shown in Figure 16c. The velocity is estimated to be 1.5 m/s.
The estimated tsunami flow velocities for all cases are summarized in Table 2. The analyzed
tsunami flow velocities are about 3–5 m/s in Kamaishi City, 2 m/s in Ofunato City, 3–6 m/s
in Kesennuma City, and 1.5 m/s in Iwaki City.
The tsunami flow directions for all cases are summarized in Figure 17. The tsunami flow
directions in Kamaishi City, Ofunato City, and Iwaki City were perpendicular to the shore-
line, but the tsunami flow directions of all cases in Kesennuma City were parallel to the
shoreline. The flow direction on land in a city depends on many factors, such as building
layouts, obstruction, and topography.
RELATION BETWEEN TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY AND FLOW DEPTH

Many researchers proposed methods to estimate tsunami flow velocities from flow
depths. Hereafter, the water surface level measured with respect to the mean sea level is
referred to as the tsunami height, and the water surface level measured with respect to the
ground surface at the site is the flowpdepth.
ffiffiffiffiffi FEMA 55 (2000) proposed the velocity of the
conservative flow for tsunamis as 2.0 gh, where g is the gravitational acceleration, andphffiffiffiffiffi
is
the flow depth. Asakura et al. (2002) proposed tsunami wave velocities ranging from 1.0 gh
pffiffiffiffiffi
to 1.5 gh, based on experimental results in a hydraulic flume. Lukkunaprasit et al. (2010)
conducted a full-scale pushover test on the one-story reinforced-concrete building
pffiffiffiffiffi in Phang-
pffiffiffiffiffi
Nga province, Thailand. The proposed tsunami velocities ranged from 1.2 gh to 1.36 gh.
Matsutomi and Okamoto (2010) proposed the relationship of the inundation flow velocity
and flow depth from field surveys of past events. The inundation flow velocity was estimated
by usingp Bernoulli’s
ffiffiffiffiffi ptheorem
ffiffiffiffiffi and the flow depth. The proposed tsunami velocities ranged
from 0.7 gh to 2.0 gh.
From the recorded videos, flow depths could be estimated for four cases: Case 4 in
Kamaishi City and Cases 6, 7, and 9 in Kesennuma City, as listed in Table 3. For Case
4, the flow depth was estimated from the flow of truck wheels in Figure 10a. Halves of
truck wheels were inundated; therefore, the flow depth of Case 4 was estimated to be
0.5 m. For Cases 6, 7, and 9, the flow depths were estimated by using Google Street
View and deriving vertical dimensions from horizontal dimensions known from satellite
images. The estimated flow depths of Cases 6, 7, and 9 were 1.5 m, 2.5 m, and 3.0 m, respec-
tively. The comparison of the analyzed tsunami flow velocity with proposed velocity pffiffiffiffiffiequa-
tions is shown in Figure 18. All analyzed tsunami flow velocities
pffiffiffiffiffi were less than 1.5 gh. The
analyzed results in Kesennuma City were about 1.0 gh, agreeing with the p results
ffiffiffiffiffi by Fritz et
al. (2012), who found that analyzed tsunami flow velocity approached 1.0 gh for a typical
water depth of 10 m inside the navigation channel at the Kesennuma Bay.
A CASE STUDY TO ESTIMATE TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY

BY TSUNAMI SIMULATION
Because the observation of tsunami flow velocities is limited, it is worth conducting tsu-
nami simulation to obtain flow velocities. The tsunami flow velocity was analyzed using the
TUNAMI model (Shuto et al. 1986, Imamura 1992) The TUNAMI model has been used to
simulate tsunamis in the past by several researchers (Dao and Tkalich 2007, Koshimura et al.
2009, Ruangrassamee and Saelem 2009, Suppasri et al. 2011). The simulation was performed
for Kesennuma City, the hardest hit area.
BOUNDARIES OF COMPUTATION
Six nested-grid regions were used in the analysis. Region 1 (the largest region) and
Region 2 were generated from GEBCO 30-arcsecond-grid data for both topography and
bathymetry, with grid sizes of 1,350 m and 450 m, respectively. Region 3 was generated
from GEBCO 30-arcsecond-grid data for topography and JHA (2010) data for bathymetry,
with a grid size of 150 m. Regions 4, 5, and 6 were generated by using GSI (2011) data for
topography and JHA (2010) data for bathymetry, with grid sizes of 50 m, 16.67 m, and
5.56 m, respectively. The computational boundaries were shown in Figure 19. The bottom
roughness was considered using Manning’s coefficient of 0.025.
TSUNAMI SOURCE MODEL

The fault model proposed by Imamura et al. (2011) was used to simulate the March 2011
Tohoku, Japan, tsunami (Goto et al. 2012). The fault parameters are listed in Table 4. For all
fault segments, the length and the width were 100 km, the strike angle was 193.0 degrees, the
dip angle was 14 degrees, and the rake angle was 81 degrees.
and (c) measurement from Google Earth (Google Earth 2011), details of Case 10 in Iwaki City.
Table 2. Summary of tsunami flow velocities
Case Observed Time Distance Velocity

No. Location Object Object for Measurement (s) (m) (m/s)
1 3 cars Warehouse 1.3 5.3 4.1
2 Front Wave Parking Lane 0.8 2.5 3.1
Kamaishi, Iwate
3 Wood Debris ATM Building 0.6 3.0 5.0
4 Debris Building 3.6 9.7 2.7
5 Ofunato, Iwate White Car 2 Poles 1.5 3.2 2.1
6 White Truck Building 1.2 7.0 5.8
7 White Car House 1.4 6.8 4.9
Kesennuma,
8 Debris One Span of 1.9 5.7 3.0
Miyagi
Warehouse
9 Bag Building 1.4 7.0 5.0
10 Iwaki, Fukushima Debris Bridges 4.3 6.3 1.5
COMPARISON OF TSUNAMI SIMULATION

The tsunami simulation results were compared with observed tide gauge data, observed
tsunami heights, and inundation area. The observed tide gauge data from two coastal
wave gauge stations (Figure 19a)—the Iwate-Chubu-Oki coastal wave gauge and
Figure 17. (a) Kamaishi City, (b) Ofunato City, (c) Kesennuma City, and (d) Iwaki City, sum-
mary of tsunami flow directions for all cases (Google Earth 2011).
Table 3. Tsunami flow velocities and the estimated flow depth from recorded videos
Case Estimated Flow Velocity, Froude Number, F

pffiffiffiffiffi
No. Location Depth, h (m) v (m/s) (F ¼ v∕ gh)
4 Kamaishi 0.5 2.7 1.2
6 1.5 5.8 1.5
7 Kesennuma 2.5 4.9 1.0
9 3.0 5.0 0.9
Miyagi-Hokubu-Oki coastal wave gauge—was used to compare with the tsunami simula-
tion results (PARI 2011). The comparison of the tide gauge data and the tsunami simulation
results were shown in Figure 20. The tide gauge data of Iwate-Chubu-Oki was compared
with simulation results in Region 2, and the tide gauge data of Miyagi-Hokubu-Oki coastal
wave gauge was compared with simulation results in Region 3. The arrival times from the
tsunami simulation were slightly longer than the observed data by about 3 minutes for the
Iwate-Chubu-Oki coastal wave gauge, and 2 minutes for the Miyagi-Hokubu-Oki coastal
wave gauge. The inundation area was compared with the observed inundation area
(GSI 2011), as shown in Figure 21. The inundation area from the tsunami simulation
Figure 18. The relationship of the tsunami flow velocity and tsunami flow depth.
Figure 19. (a) Boundaries of computation for Regions 1, 2, and 3, and (b) boundaries of com-
putation for Regions 4, 5, and 6, boundaries of computation.
agreed well with the observed inundation area. The locations of the observed tsunami
heights are shown as black dots. Figure 22 shows the comparison of tsunami heights
in Kesennuma City at the same points where inundation occurred. There were 41 data
points in Kesennuma City (The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami Joint Survey Group
2011). The simulation results match the observed data.
Table 4. Fault parameters the March 2011 Tohoku, Japan, tsunami (Imamura et al. 2011)
Fault No. Latitude (°N) Longitude (°E) Depth (km) Slip (m)
1 40.168 144.507 1.0 20.0
2 39.300 144.200 1.0 10.0
3 38.424 143.939 1.0 35.0
4 37.547 143.682 1.0 10.0
5 36.730 143.070 1.0 7.5
6 40.367 143.394 24.2 1.0
7 39.496 143.100 24.2 3.0
8 38.620 142.853 24.2 4.0
9 37.744 142.609 24.2 2.0
10 36.926 142.009 24.2 2.0
Figure 20. (a) Iwate-Chubu-oki coastal wave gauge and (b) Miyagi-Hokubu-oki coastal wave
gauge, comparison of tide gauge data.
Figure 21. Comparison of the tsunami inundation area at Kesennuma City.

Figure 22. Comparison of the tsunami heights at Kesennuma City.
TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY FROM TSUNAMI SIMULATION

The maximum tsunami flow velocity from the tsunami simulation in Kesennuma City is
shown as Figure 23. The maximum velocity in the city was as large as 10 m/s at locations
close to the shoreline. The maximum velocities from tsunami simulation at the same locations
as the observation are shown in Table 5. The tsunami flow velocities from the simulation are
close to the velocities from the observation. It is important to note that videos were not
recorded from the starting time of the tsunami at the sites. Hence, time in analysis cannot
be synchronized with time in videos. The tsunami flow velocities from the videos are
Figure 23. The maximum tsunami flow velocity from tsunami simulation at Kesennuma City.
Table 5. The estimated tsunami velocities in Kesennuma City
Estimated tsunami flow velocity (m/s)
Case No. Video Simulation

6 5.8 5.5
7 4.9 4.9
8 3.0 2.0
9 5.0 5.5
instantaneous velocities, and they may not be the maximum velocity, while the velocities
from the simulation are the maximum values of time-series data. Further study is required
to investigate sensitivity of various parameters.
CONCLUSIONS
In this study, the tsunami flow velocities were analyzed from recorded videos in
Kamaishi City, Ofunato City, Kesennuma City and Iwaki City. The flow depth was also
estimated in some cases, and a case study of tsunami simulation was performed in Kesen-
numa City. Findings can be summarized as follows:
1. The tsunami flow velocities on land were estimated from videos by estimating
movement distances from measured dimensions of objects. The analyzed tsunami
flow velocities are about 3–5 m/s in Kamaishi City, 2 m/s in Ofunato City, 3–6 m/s
in Kesennuma City, and 1.5 m/s in Iwaki City.
2. The tsunami flow directions in Kamaishi City, Ofunato City, and Iwaki City were
perpendicular with the shoreline, but the tsunami flow directions of all cases in
Kesennuma City were closely parallel with the shoreline. The flow direction on
the land in a city depends on many factors, such as building layouts, obstruction,
and topography.
3. The flow depths were estimated from recorded videos. The relationship of the tsu-
nami flow velocity and tsunami flow depth was compared with the proposedpequa- ffiffiffiffiffi
tions in
pffiffiffiffiffi several literatures. Tsunami flow velocities fell in the range of 1.0 gh to
1.5 gh, where g is the gravitational acceleration, and h is the tsunami flow depth.
4. The maximum tsunami flow velocities from the tsunami simulation were analyzed
in Kesennuma City. The maximum velocity in the city was as large as 10 m/s at
locations close to the shoreline. At the same locations as recorded videos, the tsu-
nami flow velocities from the simulation were close to the velocities from the
recorded videos. It is important to note that the further study is required to inves-
tigate the effect of various parameters on models.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge support from the Office of the Higher Education Commission,
Ministry of Education, Thailand, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, and
University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
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(Received 31 March 2012; accepted 22 December 2012)

Foytong Tsunami S161

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Foytong Tsunami S161

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Analysis of Tsunami Flow Velocities during

the March 2011 Tohoku, Japan, Tsunami

METHOD FOR ESTIMATING TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY

Figure 1. Definition of terms used to determine velocities.

The dimensions can be determined by measurement in Google Earth or satellite images.

VIDEOS USED TO DETERMINE FLOW VELOCITIES

Table 1. Cases for analysis of tsunami flow velocities

Figure 3. Cases in Kamaishi City (Google Earth 2011).

ESTIMATION OF TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY

Figure 4. Case in Ofunato City (Google Earth 2011).

Figure 5. Cases in Kesennuma City (Google Earth 2011).

Figure 6. Case in Iwaki City (Google Earth 2011).

RELATION BETWEEN TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY AND FLOW DEPTH

A CASE STUDY TO ESTIMATE TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY

TSUNAMI SOURCE MODEL

Table 2. Summary of tsunami flow velocities

Case Observed Time Distance Velocity

10 Iwaki, Fukushima Debris Bridges 4.3 6.3 1.5

COMPARISON OF TSUNAMI SIMULATION

Case Estimated Flow Velocity, Froude Number, F

Figure 21. Comparison of the tsunami inundation area at Kesennuma City.

Figure 22. Comparison of the tsunami heights at Kesennuma City.

TSUNAMI FLOW VELOCITY FROM TSUNAMI SIMULATION

Table 5. The estimated tsunami velocities in Kesennuma City

Estimated tsunami flow velocity (m/s)

Case No. Video Simulation

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