Robert Zubrin's space elevator book analyzes this situation and concludes that most of the mass would either escape or burn up in the atmosphere. Only the botto

Robert Zubrin's space elevator book analyzes this situation and concludes that most of the mass would either escape or burn up in the atmosphere. Only the bottom-most section would hit the ground. His design contemplates anchoring to a movable ocean-going platform, both for this kind of safety issue and because it means you can steer it away from big-but-easy-to-track tropical storms.