Possible Terrorist Weapon... Nature?

La Palma island hosts the Cumbre Vieja volcano, which although hasn't erupted since 1949 would present a terrorist with a easier target than the U.S. itself. The island has a fault that pretty much will cause half the island to slide into the ocean, creating a mega-tsunami... eventually. But with the right terrorist help(bomb) do ya think that could be the catalyist to set the landslide off?

It is expected that this landslide would cause a tsunami between 30 to 70 feet to reach the east coast of the U.S. www.disasterrelief.org...

Jeez! Nice way to give them ideas... jackass!

Just kidding :-)

It's a possibility, but it's unlikely enough that they probably wouldn't try it... I'm not a geologist, but I believe it would take one hell of a bomb to get a volcano to blow big enough to cause that landslide. There has to be built up pressure for the volcano to be explosive, so if the thing only blows every couple hundred years and has blown in the 40's, then a bomb would probably not do anything significant.

i was actually reading up on this earlier today, i saw a show on discovery channel talking about what might happen if the volcano erupted. apparantly the way the island is made up, rainwater doesnt have a place to go to, so it sits in the ground, and that is making it unstable. theres a nice summary of it here news.bbc.co.uk...

Edit: and the tidal wave hitting the us would be much larger, according to the bbc article, reaching up to 50 meters (around 160 feet)

[Edited on 3-4-2004 by bounty29]