THOUSANDS COULD DIE

Ten Years ago, after the usual woman trouble, (why do we keep doing it?) I left my Tenerife home for Thailand in search of even more woman trouble and once again I inevitably found it.

During my ten year stay in Tenerife, I visited the other six islands in the archipelago, one of them being La Palma, which is currently in the news as the volcano The Cumbre Vieja is erupting.

Now on the face of it, this may appear to be quite insignificant, other than to the local inhabitants of course, as a relatively small volcano on a tiny Canarian Island isn’t exactly front-page news.

WRONG

The Cumbre Vieja is the most dangerous volcano in the world and could easily be responsible for the death of thousands if not tens of thousands; this could easily happen in the next few days.

After a decent sized eruption in 1949, people noticed that a two-and-a-half-mile long, very deep gap (split) had appeared in the South-West of the island, in places several meters wide.

Naturally this became a major cause for concern and scientist and volcanologists came from all over the world to study this phenomena, soon becoming quite alarmed as the gap began to widen, the inevitable result being the enormous wedge of rock becoming detached from the main island and sliding serenely into the Atlantic Ocean.

When I say an enormous wedge, try to imagine a lump of rock, one mile long by one mile wide and one mile deep, in other words, one cubic mile.

Can you visualize that?

If so now try to imagine a lump that is 120 cubic MILES in volume; that is the amount of rock that sometime in the future will break away from the island and slide into the Atlantic – that future may well be in the coming days or weeks, as the trigger for the slide will almost certainly be a series of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, exactly what the island is witnessing at the moment.

Moving on, I guess you have already worked out what comes next.

Correct, a Tsunami to beat all Tsunamis, possibly beginning life at over a thousand feet high and travelling at up to 300 miles an hour.

The waves first port of call will be neighbouring Canary Islands before radiating outwards towards Africa and Europe; at the same time, crossing the Atlantic, swamping much of the Caribbean before attacking the East coast of America.

Over the years there have been many computer simulated models as to the effect of the Tsunami, always related to the speed at which the great chunk of Las Palmas slides into the sea, this being dependent on the size and severity of the earthquake and the volcanic eruption.

The conclusions are inconclusive, but all the scientist agree on one thing – this WILL happen very soon.

Could this be within the next few weeks?

Already, America is on high alert, unless of course Sleepy Joe has decided to focus on his favourite ice cream and not world events.