[0xEF]

Are we to assume they would be falling straight down? Because I'm pretty sure that's wrong. I'm not a physicist, though, and am happy to be corrected because every time the Space Elevator comes up, I want to know what happens when catastrophic failure occurs and how we'd mitigate that.

[speed_spread]

It would become a giant whip falling faster and faster round the equator.

[devilsdata]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

> Above GEO, the centrifugal force is stronger than gravity, causing objects attached to the cable there to pull upward on it. [...] On the cable below geostationary orbit, downward gravity would be greater than the upward centrifugal force, so the apparent gravity would pull objects attached to the cable downward.

So, without defensive countermeasures, the Space Elevator would indeed whip around the Earth.

But honestly, if I were designing such a thing, it would have break points, and maybe even a whinch at the base, to pull the line in. I'd also build it over water, and not over a population centre.

But I'm only a software engineer– it's likely a lot more challenging than this.

[LorenPechtel]

If you blow the cable apart at a few important points the mass that falls either hits fairly near downrange from the tether, or does not hit at all. Have a group of range safety officers for the charges and a law that when on duty they are expected to shoot any politician that contacts them. (I'm thinking of Fukushima. We need to vent the reactor or it will blow! You can't vent until the city has been evacuated. The reactor didn't listen to the politicians.)