According to information agencies reports about 30 people died when new waves of mighty tornados hit the Midwest and Southern states of the USA on March 2. The gusts cut a path cross the USA leaving enormous damage: hundreds of houses literally smashed, electric wires broken, trees fallen… Experts say no sooner than after a few days electric power can be restored. No precise data received yet, but the local authorities say there are dozens or even hundreds of wounded, as ITAR-TASS agency reports.
In accordance with the US National Weather Service there were about six hurricanes running wild at night on March 3, fifteen or more tornados still expected. Marysville, Indiana was leveled with the ground. Tornado is a violently rotating column of air, pendant from a cumulonimbus cloud to earth. They even have a special term in the USA – “Tornado Alley” meaning a swath of land the tornados hit hardest, that is the land lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains. A few days ago a series of tornados hit the Midwestern US states on February 29, the death toll was nine dead. Only in 2011 the total death toll was 545. The highest loss since 1936 and the third in the history of corresponding statistics.
In his article Potential Catastrophic Global Climate Change and Military-Political Situation in the World Victor Burbaki says “climate change on earth may not be gradual only. A catastrophic shift is possible that would require emergency and military response. That’s what says the Weather Report: 2012-2020 prepared by professional futurologists commissioned by the Defense Department. The expected weather change may destabilize the global political situation”.
The facts and conjectures make scholars think more and more often about the vulnerability of many countries geographic structures that could come to life due to natural processes without human intervention under the influence of relatively minor external environmental factors.
They are:
– landslide tsunami, first of all coming from the split of the Cumbre Vieja volcano situated on the La Palma island of the Canary archipelago in the Atlantic ocean. The landslide exceeds 500 square meters in size weighing over 0,5 tons. It can hit spontaneously or as a result of some minor external impact. The main target will be the USA. Much smaller 10-12 meters height West European tsunami wave may spark multiple breakdowns and even catastrophes taking into account significant number of nuclear power stations there;
– Mega tsunami on the US shore covering hundreds of kilometers deep into land. It may be activated by abrupt unsealing of oceanic lithospheric plates along the seams and catastrophically rapid ascent of impounded tense North American plateau as a result of Greenland’s accrual ice melting. Much less powerful and of smaller height but still catastrophic in nature, it will strike Europe, starting with its northern part;
– supervolcanos eruptions;
– It may be the eruption of US Yellowstone volcano with devastating effect for major part of Western states; tectonic shifts may take place in the Western USA followed by multiple earthquakes in California, threatening to reap havoc destroying major part of buildings and installations, including the most dangerous facilities.
– The same threat exists in Europe, in Italy coming from the supervolcano under the Campi Flegrei.
Scholars say the trajectory of an asteroid can be altered. But the gist of the problem is that the humanity is not able to counter tsunami or a supervolcano eruption as yet. Even an eruption of an “ordinary” volcano may lead to a decline of local civilizations on the island of Crete or part of contemporary Indonesia. Recently a relatively small tsunami, 10-12 meters along the shore line, hit a dangerous anthropogenic facility – a nuclear power station. It caused enormous catastrophic implications in Japan – the country that is well familiar with tsunami and the population lives in the state of permanent readiness for the calamity.
Elchin Khalilov, General Director of Scientific Institute of Earthquakes Prognosis (Azerbaijan), a doctor of geological-mineralogical sciences, assessed the recently growing number of natural cataclysms. His conclusion is that the humanity faces one of the most difficult periods in its history. It should always be prepared for great casualties, aggravation of economic crisis and serious tests for government control and international cooperation structures.
Sergey GAVRILOV | Strategic Culture Foundation