Originally Posted by iwantchixx

SCIENTISTS STATE ISLE OF LA PALMA WILL COLLAPSE AND DEVASTATE THE CARIBBEAN
by Carlos Elias

** It is geologically unstable and its collapse will produce a tidal wave***

MADRID.- This is not science fiction. It could happen tomorrow or several decades from now--an insignificant period of time, geologically speaking -- but it will happen. The volcanic structure of Cumbre Vieja, located on the Canary Island of La Palma, is thoroughly unstable and could crumble at any moment.

The island will split in two. Half a trillion tons of rock will fall into the sea within seconds and form a colossal wave measuring some 560 meters in height, travelling westward at a speed of 720 kilometers an hour. A gigantic tsunami will devastate the Caribbean islands and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Water from the wave will penetrate some 20 kilometers inland.

This would seem to be the plot of a disaster movie, but they are in fact the computations made by Swiss scientists concerning measurments taken on the island and incorporated into advanced geological profiling programs. The results have been published in the Journal of Vulcanology and Geothermal Research.
Faced with the sobering prospect presented by the scientists, both the editor of said publication and the Geological Society of London have written Lord Sainsbury, the British minister of science, to alert him to this almost certain catastrophe.

"It could happen at any time. Within 10 years or 10 decades, but please note this: "If I lived in Miami or in New York and heard that Cumbre Vieja was erupting, I wouldn't listen to the news a second longer," Dr. Simon Day of London's University College told the BBC.

Scientific fears are based not only on their geophysical computations which indicate that the current island of La Palma, with only 706 square kilometers of surface area and 2,426 meters in height, is in a precarious geotechnical balance. The peril also resides in a new eruption of the Cumbre Vieja peak, which isn't far-fetched cosnidering that it has exploded a dozen times in the past 100,000 years according to Day's calculations, and that the last eruption in La Palma occured in 1971.

Researchers envision two certain posibilities leading to the island's collapse: that an eruption occurs and the lava overflow shatters the volcanic structure, or simply, the increase of temperature generated increase the water pressure accumulated between the cracks of impermeable rocks, and that said pressure unleashes the catastrophe. "This is a much more vivid danger than having an asteroid fall. This would be a catastrophe not only for the island's residents, but for people on the other side of the ocean who've never heard of La Palma," says Day.