The wave would travel away from the Canary Islands in all

Wavepower directions at about 800 km/h. The other Canary Islands

would immediately be covered by water. In less than an
hour a 90-metre wave would t'ooa north-west Afnca.
This is a picture of Cumbre The side of the volcano faces west. across the Atlantic
Viejo, a huge. active volcano on La Ocean. wh«h would protect Africa ano Europe a little.
Palma, the steepest •sland in the
world. in the Canary Islands. Every few However. a 12«netre tsunami would still crash agajnst
decades it erupts and scientists are within three hours and after five hours the tidal
worried because the walls of the wave would reach Britain. The wave could travei a
volcano are getting weaker Scientists kilometre inland and devastate towns and villages.
fear that when It erupts, an enormous London would be flooded (See map.) How far would it
chunk of the volcano couid collapse travel?
and fall into the sea. If this happened. The wave would have enough energy to crrm the entire
it would be a catastrophe. Why? Atlantic Ocean. Eignt hours after the eruption it would m
Because it would unleash a giant wave ash into the east coast of America 't would still be about 30
— a tsunami — the biggest ever rnetres high Boston would be hit first. followed by New
recorded tn history. York. then the coast down to Miame The wave create havoc
Caribbean and
Brazil too. It would travel for sewral kilometres
How would it happen? because of the jow coastline it would flatten everyttung
The volcano is by the sea. and the water next to the and kill thousands o' people
volcano is about six kilometres deep. If the volcano
collapsed. a landslide of 500 billion tonnes of rod would
fall into the sea. This would create a huge tsunami about
What can we do about it?
100 metres high. (See Diagrams 1 and 2.) What would
happen next?
Nothing much. it seems. The scientists believe that it is not
a question of if. but when. The volcano will collapse at some
time in the future, but it could be hundreds or thousands of
years now Furthermore. if only part of the volcano plunged
into the sea. the tsunami would be much smaller want to
put better equipment on Cumbre Vieja, so that they can
predict the volcano•s eruptions in the future and give us an
early of possible
problems.
Although nobody
authorities could
then that would
be 'n danger and
save