America and the impending megatsunami

In terms of potential natural disasters that America will have to deal with in the not too distant future, the infamous Yellowstone caldera tops their list of hazards due to it's colossal scale and the amount of damage it will inflict the next time it decides to release the contents of it's vast magma chamber. This huge natural phenomenon is relatively well known due to it's media exposure and numerous documentaries dealing with the ramifications of such an event. Admittedly, it would induce a severe amount of destruction to both wildlife and the surrounding area, but there exist one other potential crisis which could eclipse even this, as hard as that may be to imagine.

It is known as a megatsunami, which consists of a giant wave of water, larger in comparison to regular waves by many metres and is created as a result of water displacement. Usually, this is manifested through tectonic plates, which lie on the ocean bed, pushing against one another, with one suddenly breaking free and flying upwards at pace due to the release of the stored energy. But they can also be brought about by earthquakes and large land masses sliding into the water as well. In relation to a regular tsunami they are infinitely larger, with the tallest tsunamis attaining heights of up to ten metres which pales in comparison to their larger manifestations, which can easily rise up hundreds of metres above the ocean surface.  One would not envisage the location for America's next great natural catastrophe to be situated at a volcano on La Palma, which lies within the Canary Islands in Spain, but this will inevitably happen one day and the only question that remains is when?

Despite the curious location for such an episode considering it's distance from America's shoreline, there exists a plausible explanation. In 1949, three of the volcanic sites vents erupted which at the time, seemed a perfectly normal event with no strange side effects attributed to it. However, the following day, a geologist by the name of Juan Bonelli Rubio travelled to the site and was shocked to discover that a giant fissure, measuring 2.5 kilometres long, had opened up along the sites east bank. As a result, the western side of the volcano had descended 2 metres into the water, raising concerns that the next eruption could release it altogether, resulting in it crashing into the ocean at free fall and subsequently sending a gigantic megatsunami, unrivalled in it's magnitude, travelling towards America's east coast and inflicting untold damage.

Fortunately for the time being, the volcano remains dormant but it is expected to erupt again in the future. Experts have theorised that it would take a series of eruptions to herald such a catastrophic landslide, but it remains a plausible possibility. To put into context how destructive this scenario could be, the western side of the island has an area of 500 cubic kilometres, weighing in at an estimated 1.5 million metric tonnes and if it were to fall free and displace water, it would result in a wave reaching an initial height of 1000 metres, which is beyond the scale of any tsunami previously witnessed. Obviously, some of this energy will dissipate naturally as it travels forward and by the time it reaches America's coast, it will have shrunk to a height of 50 metres, still large enough to force it's way inland, destroying infrastructure and natural formations as it travels, not to mention taking the lives of millions of unfortunate citizens. There exists a multitude of technologies that can be utilized to defend inland sites against rising tidal waves, but unfortunately, against one of such scale they would all prove futile, leaving America defenceless against one of the largest natural calamities ever witnessed, wreaking unparalleled devastation.