Canary Islands: Lava pours like a «tsunami» on La Palma

Canary Islands
Lava pours like a «tsunami» on La Palma

The lava flow from the volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma became more violent and much faster on Friday. The volcanological institute of the Canary Islands, Involcan, even spoke in a tweet of a “lava tsunami” in view of the impressive video recordings.

However, the geologist José Mangas, professor at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, emphasized that this picture is a bit crooked. “In this case, we cannot speak of a tsunami, but of lava flows with a temperature of more than 1200 degrees, which are very fast because of the steeply sloping terrain,” he said on the state TV broadcaster RTVE.

The volcanologist Juan Carlos Carracedo even suspected that the volcanic eruption on La Palma, which had lasted for almost four weeks, had stabilized by the magma now running out of the volcano without any obstacles until the pressure subsided. But when that will be the case cannot be said. Numerous light earthquakes with a strength of up to 4.5 shook the island with around 85,000 inhabitants.

Since the beginning of the volcanic eruption in the Cumbre Vieja in the south of La Palma, more than 7000 people have had to leave their homes below the volcano and get to safety. The evaluation of the data from the European Earth observation system Copernicus showed that so far 1,548 buildings have been destroyed by the lava and an area of ​​700 hectares has been covered by lava and ash. That corresponds to around 980 soccer fields. Nobody has been seriously injured so far. Sometimes the ashes were so high that only the top of the chimney stuck out of houses.

According to the operator Aena, the island’s airport was still operational. Flights to and from neighboring islands were advertised on the Internet. Air traffic on the other major tourist islands in the Canaries – Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria or Lanzarote – ran normally.

dpa