'La Palma': Is the Netflix Disaster TV Show Based on a True Story & Could It Really Happen?

justjared.com:

La Palma is one of the big new hit TV shows on Netflix. In the four-part disaster series, A Norwegian family vacationing on La Palma faces disaster when a young researcher discovers alarming signs of an imminent volcanic eruption.

The show quickly shot to up the streamer’s Top 10 list, leading plenty of people to wonder: is this based on a true story, and could it actually happen? Keep reading to find out more… No, it’s not based on a true story, but La Palma is very much real and the tsunami theory has been explored before by scientists. La Palma is a real place viewers can visit: it’s one of the Canary Islands, a group of Spanish islands off the coast of northwest Africa in the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s also nicknamed the “Isla Bonita” (“beautiful island”), via People. The theory that collapsing volcanoes could create “mega-tsunamis” was previously explored: in 2001, an academic paper was published that suggested the possibility of the La Palma volcano collapsing and causing tsunami waves up to 80 feet high along the east coasts of North and South America, via U.S.

Geographical Society. However, ocean floor mapping and tsunami modeling simulations show that volcano collapses happen in increments rather than in one piece.