  The structure of strange dwarfs and that of hybrid stars with same baryonic
number is compared. There is a critical mass (M~0.24M_sun) in the strange dwarf
branch, below which configurations with the same baryonic number in the hybrid
star branch are more stable. If a transition occurs between both branches, the
collapse releases an energy of about of 3x10^{50} erg, mostly under the form of
neutrinos resulting from the conversion of hadronic matter onto strange quark
matter. Only a fraction (~4%) is required to expel the outer neutron-rich
layers. These events may contribute significantly to the chemical yield of
nuclides with A>80 in the Galaxy, if their frequency is of about one per 1500
years.
