That article is interesting though it does seem to engage in some wild speculation. I would like the site of the Moai dated. On Easter Island, the Moai were upright on the ahu as late as Roggeveen’s “discovery” of easter island in 1722, but no standing statues by 1868. That is history so recent that earthquakes or tsunamis in the pacific are likely to have been recorded. Perhaps the person speculating in that article was thinking of events from much longer ago.
As to the deforestation of the island, I have heard theories ranging from climate change, to they cut them all down, to rats. Why not all three? In the logs from Roggeveen’s visit, they mention that the islanders paddled out on scraps of wood and that they were no tress on the island. You don’t need a cataclysm to cause the tree loss, just a slow apocalypse of overuse of a stressed resource.
