How to be paranoid!

More Things to Worry About!

I'm being a bit flippant about this but this article about Alpine Tsunamis is well worth reading. 

The danger - if you are in the mountains and a lake is nearby - is tsunamis. Tsunami is Japanese for "harbour wave" - a wave where there should not be waves. In Japan they are usually caused by earthquakes but landslides into water can also cause them.

And that is the danger in Alpine regions. The author describes various events with casualties ranging from five to 60,000. The greatest danger is with moraine dammed lakes. If the dam fails vast quantities of water can be released into highly populated valleys. This is called a GLOF - a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood.

And if you live near Laguna Paron in Peru beware of GLOFs.

Laguna Paron (Cordillera Blanca, Peru) in 2009, a lake dammed by the glacier Hatunraju with a capacity of 75 million cubic meters. The lake is surrounded by a 250 meters high moraine.  If this dam fails an outburst of around 50 million cubic meters could flood the valleys downstream.