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Is there a contemporary basin ripe for a catastrophic flood from the sea in the event of an earthquake?


Nothing the size of the Med, of course. There are several major below-sealevel basins in Northern Africa. The most significant is probably the Qattara Depression[1], which probably won't ever naturally flood, but is the target of many plans to flood it intentionally for power production and improvements in local climate.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression


Vaguely related is the Salton Sea in southern California. It's been a large lake in the geological past, but it most recently filled in due to some bad irrigation planning in 1905. It filled up in about 2 years.


Death Valley could flood if there was some way for sea water to get to it. If the climate changed and it started to rain there often, it could also make a massive inland freshwater lake.

There once was many lakes in this region:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Pleistoc...


>freshwater lake

Death Valley has no outlets (is endorheic), so it would be a salt water lake (at least after all the surface salt had time to dissolve).


It does occasionally get standing water during winter/spring rainstorms. I remember hearing about someone windsurfing there in 2005.


New Orleans, many areas of China (see 1931 China Floods), areas along the Ganges Delta, also look at the Special Flood Hazard Areas assigned in the US.


The Mosul Dam holds back a lake which would flood Baghdad in a matter of hours if damaged by earthquake or bombings.


Netherlands.




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