Boing Boing led me to
this video of a tsunami that is just amazing. Taken by a dude at the base of a set of stairs going up a steep hill. He starts filming as the waters are licking his feet on the bottom step, and he keeps retreating up the stairs as the water gets higher and higher and higher and houses start floating away. This is what the tsunami looked like to all the people it killed, except they didn't get the happy ending of backing up the steep hill.