Mega Tsunami
• Recently, scientists have realized that the next Mega
Tsunami is likely to begin on one of the Canary
Islands, off the coast of North Africa, where a wall of
water will one day race across the entire Atlantic
Ocean at the speed of a jet airliner to devastate the
east coast of the United States, the Caribbean and
Brazil.
• If the volcano collapsed in one block of almost 20
cubic kilometres of rock, weighing 500 billion
tonnes - twice the size of the Isle of Wight - it
would fall into water almost 4 miles deep and
create an undersea wave 2000 feet tall. Within five
minutes of the landslide, a dome of water about a
mile high would form and then collapse, before the
Mega Tsunami fanned out in every direction.
• Dr. Day claims that the Mega Tsunami will
generate a wave that will be inconceivably
catastrophic. He says: "It will surge across the
Atlantic at 500 miles per hour in less than seven
hours, engulfing the whole US east coast with a
wave almost two hundred feet high " higher than
Nelson,s Column " sweeping away everything in
its path up to 20 miles inland. Boston would be hit
first, followed by New York, then all the way down
the coast to Miami, the Caribbean and Brazil."
Millions would be killed, and as Dr. Day explains:
"It's not a question of "if" Cumbre Vieja collapses,
it's simply a question of "when".
Tsunamis in Canada
Tsunamis are a series of large waves that
strike coastal areas. They can happen with
little warning and result in flooding and
damage to coastal communities. Thankfully,
they are a rare event. Storm Surges are more
common.
Tsunami facts
• Tsunamis are a series of large waves
caused by events such as submarine
earthquakes, landslides, volcanic
eruptions, and less commonly, meteoric
impacts.
• Tsunamis can also occur in large lakes.
They can occur with little warning in the
ocean and in lakes.
•A tsunami can be triggered by a large, high
energy, but relatively short duration disturbance
of the sea floor.
•Such waves can travel across the ocean at high
speed (800 km/h, the speed of a jet plane).
•As the tsunami waves approach the shoreline
and water depth shallows, the wave speed slows,
but wave height will increase as wave length
decreases. In 20 m of water, wave speed will be
50 km/h.
• Tsunamis can occur as individual or multiple waves
following each other by minutes and even hours.
• Tsunamis can grow to 60 or more metres in height
(the size of a ten-story building).
Early warning signs of a tsunami
• One of the signs of a potential tsunami is the occurrence
of a very large earthquake that lasts for more than 20
seconds. If an area has been shaken by a very large
earthquake, one should be on alert that shorelines
located within the radius of the earthquake's epicentre,
may be hit by a tsunami.
• A more immediate and ominous sign of an approaching
tsunami is a rapid and unexpected recession of water
levels below the expected low tide. This can occur
minutes before the shoreline is struck by a tsunami and
can be the only sign along coastlines that are located too
far from the earthquake epicentre to have felt the
shaking.
• A tsunami may also occur with very little warning.
Natural Resources Canada's seismologists monitor for
such events, around the clock. As soon as possible, a
tsunami warning is issued to media and municipalities in
regions where a tsunami is likely to hit.
• The Canadian Coast Guard's Marine Communications
Traffic Services broadcasts tsunami alerts to mariners.
• When you get warning of a tsunami, if there is time,
move to higher ground immediately.