Sunday, May 07, 2006
Tenerife could suffer a worse catastrophy than the Indian Ocean
Although the locals are often reluctant to admit it, Tenerife has one of the highest population densities in the world. When people talk of what life is like in Japan, Singapore, or Hong Kong, it probably never occurs to them that Tenerife is well on its way to overtaking them when it comes to the number of people packed into a small area.
The island covers some 2000 square kilometres and the resident population is currently around 800,000. If we add tourists and other visitors, there are around a million people on the island at any one time. This works out at 500 people per square kilometre.
If we take Tenerife's Teide National Park out of the reckoning, together with the Anaga and Teno forests (totalling 880 square kilometres, and home to barely 4000 people), we are left with just 1200 square kilometres. Re-doing the sum, we obtain a real population density of 900 per square kilometre - close to the density found in the Maldive Islands.
Tenerife could suffer a worse catastrophy than the Indian Ocean
