Coastal towns across the UK are at risk of a mega-tsunami which could happen at any time and would come with just six hours warning, an expert has said. Sir David King, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government, says a massive wall of water crashing into the UK could be triggered by a landslide in the Canary Islands.
He says a tsunami several metres high would be sent towards the UK, putting locations such as Brighton, Southampton, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Exeter and London in its path.
Sir David told My London: “After the landslide in the Canary Islands, it would take roughly six hours for the wave to reach the UK.
“That might sound like a long time to give people to escape, but there are other places where people had longer to flee yet many people still died. What would happen in London is that everyone would get into their cars all at once to escape the city and they’d block all the roads.
“People wouldn’t be able to get out in time and they would essentially die in their cars. In the case of tsunamis, the shallower the waters are, the larger the wave will get.
"Once the tsunami passes through the English Channel and into the Thames Estuary, it will grow in size and cause destruction in the city. It could happen in 10,000 years time, but it could also happen tomorrow.”
The former Professor of Chemistry at the University of East Anglia compares what would happen in London to what happened in Lisbon in 1755.
The Portuguese capital was hit by a wave up to 10 metres high following an earthquake estimated to have had a magnitude of between 8.5 and 9 on the Richter scale, killing up to 100,000 people.
As well as potentially killing a significant amount of people and making families homeless, the scientist also warns of the ecological consequences of a tsunami
He added: “Salt water coming in from the sea could contaminate some fresh water reserves." He added: "There would be some ecological damage to wildlife too.
“On that note, the salt water would also saturate the soil around London.
“The change in salinity levels would mean farmers wouldn’t be able to grow crops in the area for many years afterwards, as has been seen in other tsunami-affected regions.”
