Tsunami!

Chile suffered the worst of it, but when the subterranean plate moved, it also set loose reverberations that were felt halfway around the world. All of Japan's Pacific coast from Hokkaido to Okinawa is getting soaked by tsunami waves.

Luckily, there was plenty of warning. So far there are no injuries and minimal damage.

How do you get ready for a tsunami?

First, you move the boats. This is a fishing country, and boats are precious. Some are hauled out of the harbors and up onto high ground. Others are sailed out to sea.

Second, you close the water gates. These are enormous movable walls about six feet high. Today's tsunami didn't top two meters, so those walls were worth their weight in gold.

Meanwhile, you move out the old people and the children. The younger folk and the men who are busy moving the boats and sealing the water gates follow. Depending on the population of the coastal settlements, from one thousand to ten thousand people/town have to be relocated before the waves strike.

The tsunami here look so mild, you might wonder what the fuss is all about. They are not like the ones in the movies that come roaring in and swallow skyscrapers whole.

They are much sneakier.

When you see the news photos at the height of the tsunami, you see what looks like a very calm lake covering the streets and swirling gently around the buildings. If you look at the same area 15 minutes later, you will see wet ground where the water was.

What you don't see is the enormous power of all that water draining back to sea in a matter of minutes. A liter of water weighs 1 kilogram. An average adult weighs about 60 kg. How many liters does it take to cover a village, say, one foot deep? I have no idea. But when that amount of water weight moves, nothing as puny as a human being can stop it. That's where the greatest danger lies, and that is why people are sitting patiently on the floors of school gyms and wherever else they have evacuated to until all the water is back in the ocean where it belongs. Even if it takes until tomorrow.