"This is not alarmism, but a statistical reality. In some scenarios, it only takes ten minutes for the waves to reach the beach," says Frédéric Leone, a geographer at the Paul Valery University in Montpellier.
Ten minutes. And it's not a question of if, but only when.
The "statistical reality" Valery mentions is an estimate he himself worked on for UNESCO. In 2022, they calculated that in the next three decades in Mediterranean Sea to become destructive cunami. Probability - close to one hundred percent.
A powerful fault near the Côte d'Azur
People still blissfully go on vacation, thinking that giant waves that kill, carry away trees and cars are something that happens in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific and only affects Asia, writes the German weekly SPIEGEL.
Far from the public eye, some resorts in Europe have already earned the "Tsunami Ready" seal. Let's say French Cannes, Greek Samo, Italian Minturno. From this June, six municipalities around Nice on the Cote d'Azur.
But the vast majority of summer tourist anthills are nowhere near ready.
Photo: Kyodo News via APMany resorts are not prepared for a tsunami
It is true that the previous tsunamis in Europe were not as devastating as in Asia, where in 2004, mostly in Indonesia, around 250.000 people died. Then, in 2011, there was a terrible nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan.
For example, the Mediterranean tsunami in 2003 killed 2.300 people in Algeria.
In the worst case, experts say for SPIEGEL, the next tsunami will hit all the Mediterranean coasts at the same time. Nice and its surroundings are especially prepared because only twenty kilometers from the coast lies the Ligurian Fault, where the African and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, so particularly strong earthquakes, the main cause of tsunamis, are possible.
What does "tsunami ready" mean?
Although they know there will be a tsunami, researchers cannot predict the height of the flood wave. Maybe a meter, maybe two or three. It seems banal compared to the giant waves from the Pacific, but already a flood wave of half a meter knocks people down and carries away cars.
So what does it mean when a coastal town is "ready for a tsunami"? Mostly notification and alert system. On the Cote d'Azur, for example, everyone's phone should beep if it's dangerous.
Photo: Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via APThe power of a tsunami can be devastating, the most common cause being earthquakes
Alleys and promenades are marked so that evacuation directions are known. It is considered that one should move away or at least two hundred meters from the shore or go to at least five meters above sea level. In panic and crowds, it is not easy either - especially since many people do not know anything about the danger of a tsunami in Europe.
German seismologist Alexander Rudolph, an expert on tsunamis, therefore invites tourists to keep their eyes open. Namely, before the impact of a big wave, the sea suddenly recedes noticeably.
That, Rudolph says, is not a sign to pack the umbrella lightly. "Forget your things, grab your kids and run away from the beach."
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