Eye witness account

From the FT magazine this weekend, page 25, article written by David Pilling:

'The last person I speak to in the evacuation centre is Tomoya Kumagai, a 58-year-old fisherman who had been on his boat when the earthquake struck. "The boat always rocks, of course. But when there's a big earthquake, the water moves differently," he explains. "You get these triangular-type, jagged waves. I knew it was a big one. So I headed back to the dock."

  Mr Kumagai found his wife and mother-in-law and drove them to safety. From a hill, he saw everything clearly. He gives me the most vivid description of the tsunami I have heard yet. "The first wave was about seven metres tall," he says. "It didn't make it over the defence wall. But then it sucked out to sea and it came in a second time. The amount of water doubled and it broke the wall. It came in many times after that, four big ones. Once the water came onto the land, it didn't flow back because more kept pouring in from the ocean." '