Page sponsored by Texaco Caribbean Limited
Publication: Daily Nation
Paper Section And Page: 17A
Paper Date: Wed, Sep 5, 2001
Byline: Compiled by Terry Ally
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Page sponsored by Texaco Caribbean Limited |
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| The
Big Splash story
IT IS tough to imagine a wave the size of the Central Bank rumbling towards Barbados' east coast at the speed of a jetliner and taking the adventurous surfer clear over St John's Parish Church. A British scientist and his American counterpart are saying that is what is going to happen - they just don't know how soon. But another Trinidad-based scientist has told Barbadians they should not panic. It all surrounds the Cumbre Vieja Volcano on the Canary Island of Las Palmas, located 3 000 miles north east of Barbados. D Simon Day, of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at the University College of London, last year reported that the western flank of the volcano had started to break off and had slipped 13 feet. He said that future eruptions of the volcano would cause the 500 billion tonnes of rock to slip or break off and when it hits the ocean, it would create one of the biggest splashes ever recorded. Last week, Day, along with Dr Steven Ward of the University of California released a new study on the magnitude of the tsunamis which this event would trigger and if it does happen, it is not good news for any country in the Atlantic basin. The rarely-seen mega-tsunamis (giant waves) would travel in all directions hitting the Western Saharan coastline next door first with waves as high as 300 feet. Six hours after the main eruption, aftershocks rippling across the Atlantic Ocean would be expected to reach Florida, the eastern seaboard of the United States, Barbados and other Caribbean islands, and the waves should be about 160 feet high. That much power travelling at 500 miles per hour would decimate anything in its path. Day and Ward calaculated that waves would be about 130 feet high by the time they reach as far as western Brazil in South America. When will it occur? It's anyone's guess. The slide would be triggered by eruptions. The last eruption was in 1971 and the volcano erupts once every few decades. "Eruptions of Cumbre Vieja occur at intervals of decades to a century or so and there may be a number of eruptions before its collapse. Although the year to year probability of a collapse is therefore low, the resulting tsunami would be a major disaster with indirect effects around the world. Cumbre Vieja needs to be monitored closely for any signs of impending volcanic activity and for the deformation that would precede collapse," Day said. Tsunami expert Costas Synolakis, of the University of Southern California, said: "It's all about timing. if the landslide happens quickly, a large wave will result. If it happens slowly, it won't cause such a dangerous ripple in the ocean." Professor John Shepherd, of the Seismic Research Unit at the University of the West Indies, said it was not something that Barbadians and other West Indians should worry about. A paper by Ward was due to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on September 1 which should provide further information on the mega-tsunami theory and our interview with Shepherd was prior to the publication of Ward's paper. Commenting on information made available to the media last week as well as similar studies by Day, Shepherd said it was fair to assume that mega-event occurred every half-million years. "Elsewhere [Day] is quoted as saying that an event of this sort happened 560 000 years ago when there were three successive giant landslides and an aborted attempt at a fourth. One could guess that these events happen perhaps once every 500 000 years," said Shepherd. Within context of the Caribbean, Shepherd, the formerly of the volcanology group at Lancaster University in England, said there were about ten major volcanic eruptions in the Lesser Antilles in the past 500 000 years mainly in St Vincent, Saint Lucia, Dominica and Martinique. Each one of these eruptions, he said, would have totally obliterated the present population of the island in which it happened and made most of the rest of the eastern Caribbean uninhabitable for decades afterwards. |
Views of the volcano. Pictures from the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre.
This diagram illustrates how the tsunami would spread in the Atlantic basin 6 hours from the time of generation. Diagram from the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre. |
| "Responsible
scientists do not normally draw attention to these very rare events
since there is little point in terrifying the general public with
scare stories about events which happen so rarely and which they can
do nothing about anyway," he said.
He added that the publicity efforts of the Seismic Research Unit in Trinidad concentrated on smaller eruptions such as the current one in Montserrat which happens every few decades and for which measures could be taken to reduce the destruction. But for the rarely-seen mega-events there was little value in scaring the public. "For the mega events, there is nothing we can do except to abandon the West Indies altogether. Nobody would wish to do that just in case a catastrophe happens half a million years from now." |
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