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Britain ‘At Risk From Asteroid Tsunami’ Which Could Wipe Out Coastal Towns

Hundreds of thousands would die

Asteroid
Asteroid


Britain is at risk from an ‘asteroid tsunami’, where a rock falling from space creates a wall of water which kills hundreds of thousands of people living in coastal towns.

University of Southampton experts have created a map showing where asteroids are most likely to fall - and found that Britain is at risk of being swamped by deadly waves caused by space rocks.

Asteroids falling near Britain in the Atlantic or North Sea could trigger a devastating impact.

There is a one in 10,000 chance a rock could splash into the North Sea off the coast of Norfolk within the next 85 years, according to the researchers.

Dr Hugh Lewis of the University of Southampton, added: ‘It’s very easy to be flippant because of the Hollywood effect but it is a real risk.

‘When you look at global vulnerability Britain is at very high risk. You might think that is odd because we are a very small country but we have a high population density on the coastline so that means we are vulnerable to an impact in the Atlantic Ocean.

Map (University of Southampton)
Map (University of Southampton)



‘Small asteroids are hitting the Earth all the time, and even if we don’t anything large, we are still likely to have tens of thousands of people dying in the next 85 years. It has a similar death toll to other natural disasters.

‘This new software not only allows us to see where an impact is likely to happen but we also simulate what might happen if we tried to deflect it, such as by using a spacecraft to give it a slow push in space.