“The lava left absolutely nothing in its path.” These are the words of Sergio Rodriguez, the mayor of El Paso, one of the villages of the Spanish Canary Island La Palma, evacuated by the authorities due to the eruption of a volcano on Sunday.
The eruption of Cumbre Vieja began shortly after 3 p.m. local time on Sunday. This is the first in 50 years on this island. Nearly 5,000 people were evacuated and taken care of by the authorities. Lorena Hernandez Labrador, city councilor in Los Llanos de Aridane, one of the villages affected by the lava flows, said that “a hundred houses” had been “destroyed in the municipalities of Los Llanos, El Paso and Tazacorte” . No casualties were reported.
The rash “will continue”
The regional government of the Canaries said Monday morning on Twitter not to plan for new evacuations at this stage, the lava flows heading “towards the sea”. According to the president of the Canary Islands region, Angel Victor Torres, the Cumbre Vieja volcano contains between 17 and 20 million cubic meters of lava. For this reason, the eruption “will continue”, he warned in a video posted on Twitter.
“According to the technical committee, everything seems to indicate that there will not be new eruption points”, added the elected official, assuring that “the safety” of the inhabitants was “guaranteed”. The Cumbre Vieja volcano had been under close surveillance for a week, due to a huge surge in seismic activity. The last eruption on the island of La Palma took place 50 years ago, in 1971.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who was due to go to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, decided to travel immediately to the island where he arrived on Sunday evening to follow developments and operations.