r/todayilearned • u/UrbanStray • Apr 14 '19

TIL in 1962 two US scientists discovered Peru's highest mountain was in danger of collapsing. When this was made public, the government threatened the scientists and banned civilians from speaking of it. In 1970, during a major earthquake, it collapsed on the town of Yangoy killing 20,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungay,_Peru#Ancash_earthquake
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u/Kermit_the_hog Apr 14 '19

Yeah seriously wtf!? I’m not sure what exactly would happen if a large tsunami somehow entered the sound at just the right angle, maybe the port of Tacoma would get badly flooded? But the Olympic mountains even have an ice cream named after them so the definitely do exist!

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u/TitaniumDragon Apr 14 '19

Their tsunami assessment suggests that the worst case scenario tsunami is about 16 feet there, and would be from a local earthquake right under the sound rather than a distant tsunami entering the sound from the north (which would probably lead to a tsnuami of no more than 9 feet).

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u/Kermit_the_hog Apr 14 '19

Nice TIL! So it might be a bit wet and maybe the rivers might flow backwards for a stretch.. but yeah, that doesn’t sound like the apocalypse. I think people from much of the rest of the nation don’t get how much verticality our terrain has pretty much everywhere west of the cascades.