OK, I'm being brave here since John has the power to help decide whether I get funded by SCEC this year (although he is in charge of another group, he can always tell other SCEC people what an idiot I am or whatever).

John did fine on the MSNBC forum, I'm sure better than I would. But, I would suggest that the format was bad...answering questions from the public live. It might have been better if the panelists had gotten the questions in advance, and been able to choose which ones to answer, or look things up. On this page, I can say "I don't know", or look things up, or just not answer. That is not a good option on live T.V. I think the newsperson asked John what the satellite image that they had just shown meant...how to interpret this....but John, wherever he was being filmed, did not see that image so of course could not answer.

The satellite image was a small island linked to the main Sumatra island by bridges, densely covered with buildings...as was the main island on the left of the image....more buildings than space in between...this is the "before" image.
In the "after" image, nothing was left, and even the island was reshaped and eroded. There was really enormous power to the tsunami here....way beyond most of what you are seeing on TV...anyone with a video camera close to this probably did not survive...plus, if it was not a tourist area and was poor, there may not have been video cameras. The small island was so eroded that the water coming in or going back out may have been channeled through that area...I would have liked to have seen a more regional view there (zoom out). I think that when analysis of the damage is done that it will be determined that the tsunami was 20 m or higher at this location...and there may be locations where it is higher than that. In Alaska in 1946, a lighthouse with 5 people was swept away by a 35 m tsunami. I would not be surpised to see comparable runups locally this time.

• 35 m tsunami in 1946