After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall

JULY 2014

The Alarms came from the Canary Islands station, simultaneously sounding at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas offices in Madrid and Barcelona, and then around the world.

“La Palma!” a graduate student in Barcelona exclaimed. “It’s breaking off!”

“Not possible,” her superior said sharply. “That old computer model was disproved—you should know that! You mean El Teide!” He raced to the monitors.

It was not El Teide, the world’s third-largest volcano, which had been smoldering on Tenerife for decades. It was the island of La Palma. A massive landslide of rock from Cumbre Vieja, itself already split in half and fissured from a 1949 earthquake, broke off the mountain. One and a half million cubic feet of rock fell into the Atlantic as the earth shook and split. The resulting tsunami crested at nearly 2,000 feet, engulfing the islands. The landslide continued underwater and a second quake followed. More crests and troughs were generated, creating a wave train.

“Not possible,” the volcanologist choked out again. “The model—”

The ground shook in Barcelona.

The wave train sped west out to sea.