Worst-case tsunami scenario

THE Almeria coast could one day face a largescale tidal wave originating in the Averroes Fault north of the Alboran Sea.
The warning came from Spain’s National Research Council (CSIC) in a recent Scientific Reports magazine article.  Coincidentally it was published not long before a mini-tsunami flooded streets and damaged moored fishing boats in Santa Pola (Alicante).
The Avarroes Fault is near to the coast of Almeria and Granada but geologists admitted that its unstable character makes it more likely to create coastal tsunamis than was originally suspected.
The Fault could, at some unspecified point, be the origin of seismic activity registering 7 on the Richter scale, they warned.
This is known to have happened in 365AD when Adra was practically destroyed after the coastal waters receded several hundred metres, returning in a giant tidal wave that battered the shore and took the lives of much of the local population.
A present-day repetition would reach Adra, Balerma, Balanegra or Almerimar in El Ejido, although Almeria City and Cabo de Gata would also be affected and, to a lesser extent, the Levante area.