Lucas awoke with a start to the noise of a persistent beeping coming from his phone and blearily leaned over to read the incoming text, "Situation critical – Status 1. Come in immediately."

Only one thing registered in his sluggish mind. They had a Status 1 emergency. The highest threat level possible. It took a few seconds to process that idea and his next conscious thought was to wonder what time was it. It felt ….early. Lucas focused and looked at his alarm clock - 4:05am. He had been right. He picked up his phone and texted back, "Message received – on my way."

He hauled himself out of bed and quickly threw some clothes on before collecting his keys and heading out the door.

**

He arrived at Thames House to find Ros and Malcolm already there, both silently nursing cups of coffee. Ros looked tense and unusually pale. When he entered, she looked up at him, and visibly collected herself, then snapped, "Meeting Room. Now!"

She began to talk almost as soon as they entered the meeting room. "Jo's still coming – we'll start without her, given the urgency of the situation."

Lucas and Malcolm nodded.

"Right," Ros started, looking grim. "Harry can't be with us. He is presently in a meeting of the JIC being briefed on the situation."

"We will have Dr Jamal Prasad joining us shortly via speaker phone to help brief us on today's events. Dr Prasad is the technical advisor to the Government's chief metrological advisor, Dr Rachel Pettinger. Dr Pettinger is otherwise engaged with the JIC."

Just then a rather harassed looking Jo silently entered the meeting room and sat down quietly, giving her full attention to Ros. Ros didn't bother to greet her and continued onwards.

"What I can tell you," she began grimly. "Is that a little over an hour ago Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted in the Canary Isles, causing a lump of rock twice the size of the Isle of Man to slide into the sea floor."

"It is my understanding that this event has set off a chain of events which now cannot be stopped and will result in a massive wave, a mega tsunami the like of which we have never seen before emanating throughout the entire Atlantic."

Looking at the rest of the team she could see the shock registering on their faces as they processed this information.

"What can we expect as a result of this tsunami? –" Malcolm began, only to be interrupted by Ros saying curtly, "Dr Prasad will tell us more."

"Dr Prasad?' Ros said, leaning over the phone. "So good of you to join us. Could you begin to explain today's events."

"Yes, certainly," he replied briefly. "At 3.15 this morning Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted, causing a massive landslide into the Atlantic ocean. As a consequence of this a tsunami over 300 foot high and traveling at over 400 miles per hour is expected to hit the coast of Africa around now."

He paused and then continued soberly, "Unfortunately Africa is the least of our worries. The tsunami will create a massive ripple effect throughout the Atlantic. In less than two hours waves of up to 20 metres are expected to reach the coast of Spain and Portugal causing complete devastation of the coastal settlements there and the area some miles inland. There will be a similar effect on the French coastline shortly after. Three hours after reaching Spain, at 9:25am the Southwest coast of England is expected to be hit with surges of up to 13 metres high, which will obliterate almost everything in their path. Other parts of the coastline will be hit with swells that are smaller but are still expected to cause significant flooding and loss of life."

"In London the tidal surge is expected to travel up the Thames at more than 200 miles per hour and to raise water levels by as much as 20 feet. The force of the water and the resultant flooding is likely to cause massive devastation and loss of life throughout the centre of the city. The entire underground will be submerged, as would the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Power stations and substations, schools and hospitals and around 40% of the surface area of the city."

"Within a few hours of the tsunami hitting the UK, it will devastate the coast of America. Waves of up to 50 metres are expected to hit first Boston, then New York, Miami, the Carribean and Brazil and to penetrate the coastline for up to ten miles inland. The entire eastern seaboard of Canada, America and South America will be wiped out. The cities along these coasts will cease to exist and their populations will be obliterated. Other cities bordering the Atlantic will also be affected. Storm surges affecting these cities won't be as high as elsewhere so the destruction won't be complete but there is likely to be widespread flooding, devastation and the loss of life at a level that is completely unprecedented."

The team had been listening in complete silence to this information, struggling to comprehend the magnitude of the disaster they faced.

Lucas was the first to raise his voice and break the shocked silence by asking quietly, "Has anyone calculated how severe the loss of life will be?"

"I doubt it – but the number of cities that will be affected by this must mean we're talking in the hundreds of millions. " Dr Prasad replied.

Jo looked at Lucas, then Ros and said softly, her voice unsteady, "So we're facing the end of the world as we know it."

The reply was prompt and had the clinical precision of a man who dealt in facts not hyperbole, "To say that this is a global catastrophe is an almost absurd understatement."

Ros asked hesitantly, "Do we have any idea of the potential UK death toll from this event?"

"Outside of London 4 - 6 million deaths if we can't evacuate the affected areas in time. Inside London, potentially 5 million deaths," Dr Prasad replied. Then he added, "we are currently in the process of running a computer model to simulate the effects on the UK in greater detail. We'll keep you informed of the results."

Jo turned to Ros and asked quietly - "What is the likelihood of staging a successful evacuation of London in time?".

Ros took in a breath before replying grimly. "Almost nil. I'm confident we will be able to evacuate Ministers, members of the JIC, the Royal Family and parts of the civilian population in affected areas but it will be impossible to stage a full scale evacuation in that timeframe. There's no way five million people could be evacuated in time. The transport network would become completely gridlocked."

Beside Ros, she could see Lucas nodding grimly, confirming her assessment.

She was almost afraid to ask the next question but began, the uncertainly registering in her voice, "What percentage of the affected civilian population do you think we could evacuate?"

Lucas replied this time, "Within London, I don't know – perhaps 20%, maybe as high as 30% - certainly not all five million."

"In other areas we may be able to do better as there will be multiple exit routes available and therefore less congestion – but I doubt we would be able to successfully evacuate more than 50% of the population."

"So today could see the death of up to seven million people," she replied, hastily calculating the potential devastation the tsunami would have on the country.

"Correct." Ros replied shortly, then turned her attention to the group.

"Do we have any more questions for Dr Prasad?" she asked, surveying her colleagues.

No one replied. "Thank you for your time Dr Prasad – I'm sure we'll be in touch again shortly. We'll continue our meeting in the meantime."

**

There will be more character interaction in future chapters - this chapter is heavily plot related, and a couple of the next few may be as well.

Scarily this whole volcano eruption triggering a mega tsunami scenario is a real possibility. Thought it would be a great basis for a fic ever since I read about it.