I am from, and currently live in the Azores. Friends from São Jorge Island have told me that they are not overly concerned at the moment and have evacuated only to another part of the island. Many people have gone to other islands.
Before you think it's silly that people seem unpreocupied, please remember that vulcanoes and earthquakes are, and have been, a part of our lives since our ancestors populated the Azores.
I haven't had any close relatives actually from Sao Miguel for two generations, but I did almost move to Fall River, MA a couple of years ago, so that sort of counts.
The article compares it to them, but also mentions that the exact extent of a tsunami danger from landslides in the canaries is debated. There are arguments that the travel distance to landfall, continental shelves, and tendency towards multi-stage landslides mitigates the danger from landslides in the Canary Islands.
I had the recollection that at least in terms of earthquake risk, the mid-Atlantic region is not nearly as bad for severe earthquakes as the Pacific, since the mid-Atlantic is an expanding / divergent fault. I.e. material gets pushed up gradually and the plates are politely moving away from one another. This is supposed to be less catastrophic compared to subduction where big stresses build up and get released suddenly when things break. Is that generally right?
But of course, that is just the earthquake part, doesn't speak to the volcano or tsunami risk of big mountains erupting or falling into the ocean. I guess this current story is about the possibility of lava/ash, like what happened to the suburbs downslope of Kilauea or Soufriere Hills in the last couple years.
Edit, actually watching one of the videos linked by other commenters, it looks remarkably like Molokai and people living (gulp) at the bottom of steep drop-off/valleys.
Earth science PhD here - you're pretty much right, but Atlantic oceans can still be bad.
Most earthquakes are caused by tectonic plate motion.
The biggest earthquakes (>M9, e.g. Japan 2011) occur at subduction zones where an oceanic plate collides with and dives underneath a continental plate. Japan, South&Central America, New Zealand, and Malaysia are the biggest and most common examples. Two plates pushing against each other allow large energy to build, which can be released suddenly and catastrophically.
Large earthquakes (M7-8, e.g. San Francisco 1906) can still occur along strike-slip faults, where two plates are sliding past each other. However, because the plates are sliding, these faults usually cannot build enough energy for extremely large earthquakes (>M9.0). San Andreas fault in California is the most well known strike-slip fault and runs through both LA and SF, and has caused plenty of damage partly because the faults run directly through population centers.
The Azores lie on top of strike slip and expanding (normal) faults. Thus, they are not likely to experience the largest earthquakes (M9), but could be hit but a M8 which can still be devastating, especially if buildings are not constructed with earthquake safety in mind.
In addition, there is a high risk of any earthquake triggering an underwater landslide since the Azores are a mid-ocean island chain. This could cause a tsunami which could damage far-away locations.
As far as lava/ash risk -- generally the biggest risk is from explosive eruptions forming into a fast-moving cloud of ash and mud called a "pyroclastic flow" or "lahar". [1] These can travel faster than a car and blanket everything in their path in a boiling, burning cloud. Think Mt St Helens or Mt Vesuvius. However, only certain types of volcanoes are at risk of this type of eruption -- Hawaii for example erupts as smooth, oozing lava flows -- and I don't know if the Azores are at risk for this kind of eruption.
Notes on safety:
For earthquake safety, the best cure is preparation. Most injuries and death occur from items falling on top of people during the shaking. Secure shelves and items on walls. Avoid living in structures on poles as they are prone to collapse (e.g. apartments with parking garage on first level). Avoid living in marshy areas or seaside land constructed with landfill (due to liquefaction) or on steep slopes (due to landslides).
For tsunamis, if there is a warning, head to high ground further inland if possible, or move to upper stories of the roof of structures.
Is there some sort of correlation with uptick in seismic activity, I mean are we in seeing normal activity, or is there indeed a lot more going on than 'usual'?
Maybe it's just some synchronicity and I'm just more 'aware' because of all the other natural disasters, and non-natural, but it just 'feels' like something big is coming because of all the volcanoes, tsunami's, and other reports of activity.
Also, how much does climate change affect volcanoes, and earthquakes?
One big concern I have is the potential for a big boom that can be heard for thousands of miles (like the recent Tongan eruption), which would be in range of a certain trigger happy sociopath that wants a reason to use his nukes. I'm not sure if either of those scenarios (big boom or misinterpreted nuke signals) is realistic, but I'll be worried until it is effectively a non-issue.
At first I thought that was kinda crazy, cause he'd 'know' pretty quick it was a volcano, but then I realized some of the 'deadmen switches' are triggered by seismic actions, or at least that's what I'd heard/read elsewhere, maybe it's not. Would kinda suck if something automatically launched because of a geological event, not an actual attack, and it actually wasn't Putin causing it.
Two conditions have to be met for a deadman switch to work. Firstly, its armed. Secondly, a FAILURE TO CONTACT event of some kind. (my words). But, its not momentary fail. Its got trigger conditions and gates. It isn't an immediate response option. Its the "at the end..." logic in MAD.
So for an earthquake there would be a loud "boom" and there might be some initial failure to contact. But then there would be cell service, satellite, ultra-long wavelength comms, all kinds of alternate paths home. There would be a distinct lack of radiological problems. A complete absence of any sign of protracted single-strike attack at scale on your nation state, the continuance of evident non-nuclear life as normal (normal! I mean who had pandemics in their 2022 yearbook before 2020...)
Having a deadman switch which was capable of being triggered solely by a local geological event absent all other context would be very bad design.
1755 earthquake (and tsunami) nearly destroyed the whole city and was probably one of the most deadliest in history. It was also one of the first quakes to be studied scientifically [0]
Sooner or later it will hit Lisbon again, scientists say. As a Portuguese I'm very afraid the city is not prepared for something with an estimated magnitude of 7.7–9.0...
It did destroy a significant portion of the city, and the rebuilding was a centerpoint of the Marquis de Pombal, whose expanding rule/influence was largely won based on his skill at using the rebuild to enact all manner of political change in a short period of time.
I hope it's not like what happened in La Palma in the Canary islands last year. But it brings to the attention that maybe building your life on a volcanic area is not the best move over the long term. Chances that something happens in a 100 year lifespan are not negligible.
I was just in Azores a few months ago and was seriously considering the move there. Truly one of the most naturally beautiful places I’ve even heard the chance to see.
I hope that everyone is able to stay safe and get through this alright.
If you want agriculture, there's no place better than near a volcano (which is one reason for big death tolls, when they blow their tops).
I lived in Uganda, and that country is surrounded by volcanoes (I think they are all dormant). The soil is jet-black, and it is a gorgeous, lush nation.
I recently watched a documentary about the east rift valley. They say in a few millions of years there'll be a new ocean and Africa will divide into two.
It says in the article that 8 people were killed in the eruption of 1808, more than 200 years ago. From Wikipedia, the most recent significant eruption in the Azores was in 1957. No one was killed.
People have been living in the Azores since the 1400s.
I'm willing to bet that the risk from volcanic eruption in the Azores is considerably less than the risk from, say, traffic accidents in a major mainland city.
Unless you're Nietzsche: “The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius!”
I'd rather build on a voclanic area than anywhere near Russia. Places with volcanoes are maybe the nicest places to live if you're not obsessed with material posessions.
I think there's a difference between building a house in the midwest and building one on top of a volcano? There's a lot of probably to work with there (along with possibility to escape the natural disaster, I can build a tornado proof underground shelter)
wow, that page is impossible to read. Every few seconds it kept popping back to the top of the page. After 5 times trying to continue reading where I left off I gave up
I don't understand how normies with JavaScript enabled manage to do anything on the internet these days. Seems content publishers have thrown usability out the window in favor of spammy tracking and manipulative marketing.
This link has more information than Reuters (and it's not paywalled like the links you've shared, at least from me).
I didn't notice the pop-ups due to the adblock I use, my apologies for that.
This is terrifying and scary sounding, there is still so much we don't understand about the earth. It seems we are involved in quite a dangerous experiment as society continues to scale out and consume resources at an ever increasing rate.
Are we most likely screwed as a species in the medium term? Is the best plan really to rely on the benevolent leadership and good intentions of low-EQ celebrities like Elon Musk and Uncle Jeff Bezos along with the government to save us from catastrophe?
I sure hope we (and our children) aren't stuck on a dead end path, but sometimes it seems quite probable. We can't even stop putín from doing crazy stupid murderous shit because we are rightly afraid of a ww3 nuclear holocaust. This doesn't even start to address the reality that the universe doesn't care whether or not humanity continues to exist. It's frustrating and depressing.
For whatever it's worth, while there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about sustainability and resource consumption, this particular type of natural disaster has absolutely zero to do with humanity.
This is very much something we understand quite well. You're seeing volcanic activity on a volcanic island on a plate boundary. Basically, this is the geological "normal" for this area that's been going on much longer than human civilization.
It's fair to be worried about increased human population in areas that are affected by this, but it's not in any way something caused by civilization's toll on the environment or even something we "don't understand" in some way. There's _tons_ that we don't understand in detail, but the broad brush strokes of volcanoes at a mid ocean ridge is something we understand relatively well. Note that the evacuation is beginning _before_ the eruption due to both local seismic monitoring of the sub-surface and space-borne monitoring of deformation at the surface.
>Is the best plan really to rely on the benevolent leadership and good intentions of low-EQ celebrities like Elon Musk and Uncle Jeff Bezos along with the government to save us from catastrophe?
If we learned anything from the global pandemic (covid-19), the world would do better by building and strengthening institutions like WHO and CDC to solve global problems.
