Ideas 18...Mega Tsunami - Canary Islands

The eruption of a volcano on the Spanish Island of Las Palma, part of the Canary Islands off West Africa in 1971, resulted in a land movement along the western flank that created a fissure about four meters wide and four kilometres long. A volume of five hundred cubic kilometres. This fault line could result in a major landslide from mountain top to ocean floor involving the movement of a million tonnes of earth. This would create a mega tsunami travelling at the speed of an airliner, 600 knots, and about two hundred metres high. This would have the capability to wipe out the entire eastern seaboard of north and central America with a wave height of ten to twenty-five metres. A shift in so much mass could trigger earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and even super volcanic eruptions. Another volcanic eruption on La Palma could well result in this taking place. Because we do not have a world technocracy, nothing is being done to mitigate such an occurrence. The Canary Islands is also one of forty-three potential super volcanic hot spots or mantle plumes around the world.

So what should be done? As usual the democracies involved are burying their heads in the sand to the problem. There are a number of alternatives. One scheme is to remove the offending unstable material. This would be almost impossible to do since most of this material is hundreds, if not thousands, of metres below sea level. Removing this material could make the entire island unstable since it consists of vertical seams of alternating volcanic rock and water. Alternatively, the island could be stabilized by pumping cement into the seams of water, from the base upwards. However, any work on the existing structure could destabilize it. The entire seamount would have to be closely monitored, with strain gauges and lasers, for any movement caused by this rectification. The resources needed to do this would be vast, whilst the cost in a capitalist world, unaffordable. As with global warming, the cost of doing nothing is far greater than putting things right. Despite its intelligence, the human race suffers from a major flaw, it often does not act on warnings.

The relatively small Indian Ocean tsunami that occurred off Sumatra on boxing day 2004, killed at least two hundred and twenty thousand people in at least four countries, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
Fifteen thousand people were killed by the Japanese tsunami in March 2011.
When the movie Day After Tomorrow was seen by New Yorkers, they failed to take appropriate action to save their city from a storm surge. It is time to ensure that all these people did not die in vain. Should this incident take place then the only bright light on the horizon is the prospect that, in addition to killing tens of millions of innocent people, the Canary Islands tsunami would probably kill most of the prevaricating politicians responsible for this disaster.

It is now September 21st, 2021 and guess what, the Cumbre Vieja volcano at the southern end of La Palma is erupting for the first time since 1971. It has already destroyed 166 homes on the western slope and covered one square kilometres with lava. 6,000 people have left the area whilst 85,000 live on the island. The local hotels are filling with tourists eager to witness the spectacle.

November 5th Guy Fawkes Day...The volcano is still erupting. 7000 people have been evacuated with 1000 hectares covered in lava and 2000 buildings destroyed. The media has finally issued a warning of the likely impact of a mega tsunami should the west flank of the island slide into the Atlantic Ocean. There is a crack 9 miles long, along the main ridge of the island, which formed during the last eruption in 1971. If that gave way, then the tsunami wave, originally hundreds of feet high, would take about 9 hours to travel the 4000 miles to the west coast of the Americas, travelling at a speed of at least 220 miles per hour. It would take 3 hours to reach the UK. Actually, in a tsunami it's not the water that moves but the energy, until it reaches a land mass. There appears to be no plans by the USG to move its seat of government, nor the Pentagon, the Department of Defense headquarters inland from Washington DC.

Having been inactive for about ten days, the volcanic eruption on the island of Las Palma was finally declared over on Christmas Day 2021...for the moment at least.