Top 10 Global Catastrophes That Could Happen
Tomorrow
10) New York is over
So number 10 on our list. Basically New York
is f*****! And all 8 million people living
there. Experts believe that New York City
is going to be hit by a hurricane which will
plunge the city underwater, this decade! Bye
bye Big Apple! Over to John in New York to
tell us more.
That’s right Dave! The Statue of Liberty
is going for a swim!
Okay so the science, New York is in a hurricane
path, but even worse, it's positioned in the
middle of where New Jersey and Long Island
meet. This area is called the New York Bight,
which acts as a funnel, sucking in high storm
surges direct to New York city.
Now this is a serious issue. U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers have calculated that should a
hurricane hit, with 160-kph winds, 500 million
tons of seawater will be pushed into the New
York harbor.
This will cause floods 3 - 4 meters high,
blocking every escape route! New York’s
subways and streets will be submerged.
The storm will cut off the electricity and
phone services and the floods will shut down
10 of the city’s power plants and the emergency
generators powering cellphone towers.
An analysis by the Department of Homeland
Security predicts that if a category 4 hurricane
hits New York City, it will cause $500 billion
worth of damage.
So yeah, good night New York, back to you
Dave.
9) Burning of the Earth
It’s getting hot in here. John, factor 50
isn’t going to help you if this global catastrophe
happens. Two words, solar flares.
Factor 50 won’t help you either mate, so
what’s your point?
Back to the story. Our Sun emits solar flares
charged with the energy of millions of hydrogen
bombs exploding at once. Some of these flares
extend far enough to reach the upper atmosphere
of our Earth.
Now this actually happens all the time, and
usually solar flares have no impact on our
planet, but if intense enough, a solar storm
could be powerful enough to devastate man-made
satellites both in orbit and on the ground,
as the energetic electrons cause a charge
build-up, which could basically take out our
satellites.
The largest recorded solar storm was in 1921,
which knocked out the US telegraph service.
But scientists have calculated that if a similar
storm happened today, it would disable communications,
radio, the internet and the global positioning
system.
According to the National Research Council,
if our satellites are taken out, it would
cost an estimated $1–2 trillion, with a
full recovery taking up to 10 years.
After analyzing solar storm records from the
past 50 years, Pete Riley, a scientist at
Predictive Science, Inc. has calculated that
there is a 12 percent chance of a major solar
storm hitting Earth in the next 10 years. 
8) The destruction of the Pacific Rim
Now Hawaii might seem like paradise, but a
mass of land on an island called the Hilina
Slump is basically a death trap, not just
for Hawaiians, but the whole Pacific Rim.
Over to John for the details.
Yes, well thanks Dave. The Hilina Slump is
basically an area of moving land mass on the
southern side of the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii,
which is at risk of collapsing into the sea.
If the 12,000 cubic kilometers of rock fall
into the Pacific Ocean, it will cause a devastating
earthquake of the highest magnitude, and a
megatsunami powerful enough to threaten the
Pacific Rim, with colossal waves reaching
North America in a matter of hours. 
A previous mega-tsunamis in Hawaii 110,000
years ago, caused by similar geological phenomena,
created waves 500m tall - that’s taller
than the Empire State Building.
Even as recently as 1975, the movement of
the Hilina Slump generated a destructive tsunami
that reached California, killing two people,
and injuring another 19. 
While the Hilina Slump is currently moving
seawards by only 10 centimeters a year, it
would only take a jolt from an earthquake
to set this catastrophic chain of events into
motion.
7) The Really Big One
Did you know The Rock film San Andreas was
based on a true story? Well not really, but
for years America has been bracing itself
for ‘The Really Big One’, the inevitable
earthquake which is going to rip the West
Coast to shreds. Over to John on the West
Side, for the details.
That’s right Dave. Well at the bottom of
the Pacific Ocean is the Cascadia subduction
zone, a place where the Pacific Ocean floor
is being forced beneath the North American
landmass. 
While the rate of movement of the ocean floor
is currently just 40mm a year, the two tectonic
plates are becoming compressed, creating a
pressure that will eventually create a colossal
earthquake strong enough to split apart portions
of the West Coast of America and create a
tsunami in the Pacific Ocean, with waves reaching
30 meters high.
The US government’s emergency management
agency FEMA, predicts that should this earthquake
and resulting tsunami happen 13,000 Americans
will die, 27,000 will be left injured and
1 million people will be displaced.
Geologists estimate that there is a 37% chance
‘the big one’ will occur in the next 50
years.
6) The North Sea Tsunami
So at number 6 on our list, it’s not just
tropical paradises that are at risk of global
catastrophe, but even in Europe a North Sea
Tsunami could be on its way to end it all.
That’s true Dave, the North Sea may seem
an unlikely place for a devastating tsunami
but climate change has led to a concern that
a submarine landslide in the region might
lead to just this.
A submarine landslide occurs when landmass
underwater breaks off into the ocean.
Scientists have suggested that over 6,000
years ago, a sharp sea-level rise due to rapid
melting ice added weight to the submarine
glacial deposits at the edge of the Norwegian
continental shelf, destabilizing them and
causing a 300km long landslide.
This generated a tsunami that reached heights
of up to 20 meters, washing away whole populations
in the Shetland Islands, Scotland and on the
Norwegian coast.
A computer model designed by Norwegian scientists
have forecasted that should a mega-landslide
occur in the North Sea again, in just minutes
14-meter-high waves would hit Norway's coast,
with fatal results, as many cities lie at
sea level. After six hours, the tsunami would
still be six meters high, flooding the costal
cities of Scotland.
Scientists have warned that if the Earth continues
to warm rapidly, then these submarine landslides
could become more frequent. This would mean
flooding in parts of Europe and maybe even
London. So basically we’re all screwed.
5) Global Drought
Now I know I’ve been going on about how
tsunamis and floods are going to end it all
any minute, but I’m receiving breaking news
right now, that there actually isn’t enough
water to go around. So John what’s the news
on the ground?
Well Dave, according to geologist Professor
Iain Stewart, in just 15 years time, half
the world's population could be living in
areas with no water.
In fact global drought threatens the future
of water, food supplies and even the global
economy.
Even though our planet contains over a billion,
trillion liters of water, only a tiny fraction
is available for us to use and converting
sea water to fresh water is an energy intensive
and expensive process.
In fact a number of countries are already
suffering severe drought conditions. Including
Colombia, Pakistan, Somalia, Australia, China,
and Kenya.
Agriculture soaks up nearly 70 percent of
all global water use, so a worldwide water
shortage would cause famine and cause the
price of food to skyrocket.
Poor drinking water supplies means more people
will drink from dirty sources, and water borne
diseases such as typhoid would spread quicker.
Experts predict that global drought could
even lead to wars between nations over the
limited water resources.
Already two million people a year die from
a lack of safe drinking water and global drought
conditions means that this mortality rate
is only going to increase.
4) Deadly bug
I hope you’ve packed your tissues mate!
The next global catastrophe may not be a massive
astroid or the biggest ever tsunami, it may
actually be a microscopic virus.
That’s right Dave. According to Ran Balicer,
a director at the Ben Gurion University in
Israel, in our lifetime, humanity may face
a pandemic of a mutated strain of influenza
or an unknown virus.
In the 20th century alone, there were three
major pandemics of the influenza virus, with
the 1918 Spanish flu killing between 50 - 100
million people - that’s more fatalities
than during the whole of WW1.
Global pandemics are extremely difficult to
predict because they all start from a random
event, such as a pathogen crossing to humans
from another species.
Another big threat posed to humanity is for
a brand new virus, or a hybrid of several
viruses developing, which humans have no experience
of treating.
And Ebola isn’t the first time humanity
has faced a possible global pandemic. In the
14th century The Black Death killed half the
population of Europe and up to an estimated
200 million people worldwide. Even with modern
medicine, different strains of virus from
Ebola, HIV to Avian Flu have posed pandemic
threats to humans.
With our cities getting bigger and international
travel more frequent, the risk of a deadly
virus outbreak is even higher.
3) Wave of Destruction
Alright John I hope you’ve packed your scuba
gear. Scientists at University College London
have predicted that a collapsing volcano in
the Atlantic will cause the world’s largest
ever mega-tsunami, submerging the Caribbean
and East Coast of America.
Well Dave this is only the worse case scenario.
But you are right, it doesn’t get much worse.
Dr. Simon Day of University College London
has predicted that when the Cumbre Vieja [Veer
ka] volcano on the Canary Islands next erupts,
it’s unstable left side will collapse and
plunge half a trillion tons of rock into the
Atlantic Ocean.
Swiss researchers who have have modeled the
landslide, estimate that it will create a
wave 600 meters high that would spread out
and travel across the Atlantic ocean at speeds
of up to 720 km/h, the speed of a jet craft,
reaching the African coast in 1 hour and the
Americas in 6 hours.
As the tsunami reaches land, the wall of water
would weaken, but waves would still be 40-50
meters high and the surge would be powerful
enough to create havoc in North America as
much as 20 kilometers inland.
2) Doomsday Astroid
Is it a bird, is it a plane, no it’s a f******
asteroid.
According to NASA it is likely that we would
have no warning if an astroid was about to
hit Earth, until it is too late.
Of the 100,000 Near-Earth Objects which can
cross our planet's orbit and are large enough
to be dangerous, so far only 11,000 have been
tracked and cataloged.
NASA is so concerned that they are going to
miss a massive flying rock hurtling to Earth
that they’ve created a hypothetical 2015
asteroid impact scenario as part of their
Near Earth Object Observation Program.
Even an asteroid at least 1 km in diameter
could have a serious impact on civilization
by generating enough debris to block the Sun
worldwide, such as the Chicxulub asteroid,
which is thought to have caused the extinction
of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
1) The Forgotten Super volcano
Number 1 on our list is Lake Toba super volcano.
You would think the fact there is a super
volcano in Indonesia, threatening to destroy
life on Earth any minute, would be talked
about more, but never mind that’s why we’re
here, over to you John.
I know, scary stuff. So, Mount Toba is the
largest volcanic lake on Earth, it has a huge
magma chamber just 20 to 100k m beneath the
lake.
Scientists believe that if Mount Toba erupts
again, it could be as damaging as its last
eruption 74,000 years ago, which was the biggest
volcanic blast on Earth in at least 2.5 million
years.
When it last erupted at least 2,800 cubic
kilometers of volcanic material was ejected.
The Toba catastrophe theory suggests that
ash from the blast blocked out the sun and
caused a 10 year volcanic winter, while the
Earth’s temperature dropped for as long
as 1,000 years. This event is thought to have
almost wiped out humanity, reducing the global
population to just 15,000 people.
Scientists don’t yet know when its next
eruption will be, but just the force of one
earthquake under the volcano will be enough
to end it all.
Thanks for that report John. Well that’s
all we have time for on 10 Global Catastrophes
that could happen tomorrow. Hope you learned
something new, this time on AllTime 10s.
