Press Trust of India Posted online: Friday, January 07, 2005 at 1104 hours IST Updated: Friday, January 07, 2005 at 1112 hours IST
Madrid, January 6: As the international community strives to aid victims of last December 26 devastating tsunami in southern Asia, scientists are warning that an erupting volcano in Spain's canary islands could unleash a mega-tsunami larger than any in recorded history.
The report says an explosion of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma could send a chunk of rock twice the size of the isle of Wight into the Atlantic at up to 220 miles an hour.
"We just don't know when it will happen, but are people prepared to take the risk after the Indian Ocean events?" Bill McGuire of Britain's Benfield Hazard Research Centre said, calling for a program to monitor the slide in Cumbre Vieja's flank.
The dire prophecy by British and US academics predicts that a wall of water up to 55 yards high would crash into the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, flattening everything in its path.
Many experts believe the risk of mega-tsunamis from such a massive landslide on La Palma has been hugely overstated.
But in the study's scenario, energy released would equal the electricity consumption of the US for six months, sending gigantic tidal waves across the Atlantic at the speed of a jet plane.
