LONDON (AP) — Britain has added volcanoes and solar storms to floods, flu and reign of terror on a list of threats to general security.

The highest-priority risks to Britain are pandemic influenza, coastal flooding, terrorist attacks and — a fresh addition — volcanic eruptions in Iceland, according to the lately published 2012 edition of the polity's National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies.

"Severe space weather" poses a threat to communications systems, electronic circuits and spirit grids, the list said. Solar storms — eruptions of attractive energy and charged particles — are character of the sun's normal 11-year revolution of time, which is expected to reach a point next year.

The storms can't pain people, but can disturb electric grids, GPS systems and satellites. In 1989, a sharp solar storm knocked out the ability grid in Quebec, cutting electricity to 6 the masses people. Last week, the strongest solar blow violently since 2004 passed without major disruptions.

Last month, Parliament's defense committee called attached the government to prepare for disruptions to electrical supplies and satellites from electromagnetic pulses — whether caused ~ dint of. the sun or by a nuclear weapon exploded in space.

Space war is not included in c~tinuance the British government's risk annals.

"We are becoming more and in greater numbers reliant on technology, and that technology is pretty more and more delicate," the committee's chair, Conservative lawmaker James Arbuthnot, told Sunday's issue of The Observer newspaper. "Be filled with fear, very afraid."

Launched in 2008, the hazard register assesses threats that are probable to endanger human welfare, the environment or shelter in Britain. It is the national version of the National Risk Assessment, which is classified.

Volcanic eruptions have been added to the like since the last edition in 2010. Ash from the April 2010 outbreak of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano grounded European open atmosphere travel for several days.

But the British dominion says a more serious risk is posed ~ dint of. an effusive, or gas-rich, explosion. The 1783-84 Laki eruption in Iceland sent uncovered noxious gases that spread as smog athwart Europe, causing crop failures, famine and thousands of deaths. The ruling power said such an eruption "is very lately one of the highest-priority risks" Britain faces.

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Online:

National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies: http://fragment.ly/AqN0uz

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