Volcanic eruption on La Palma: authorities warn of sulfur dioxide cloud

Status: 23.09.2021 4:53 p.m.

The volcano Cumbre Vieja on the Canary Island of La Palma is still active. The authorities are now warning of the spread of a sulfur dioxide cloud. The Spanish royal couple encouraged the people.

The erupted volcano Cumbre Vieja on the Canary Island of La Palma does not come to rest. He spat lava again into the sky, while a poisonous ash shower fell on the surrounding area. The lava continued to make its way towards the sea, albeit a little slower than in the past few days. On her way she has already destroyed around 350 houses and schools as well as banana plantations, roads and power lines. 166 hectares of land are now covered with lava.

Authorities warned people not to eat unwashed fruits and vegetables. A cloud of sulfur dioxide was expected to move east over the rest of the Canary Archipelago towards the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean Sea.

Lava flows much more slowly

Due to the reduced flow rate of the lava, it is feared that it will spread over the land and destroy more houses instead of flowing into the sea. The 600-meter-wide lava flow, which had moved downhill at 700 meters per hour after the eruption, now flowed at four meters per hour after reaching a level, according to the authorities. As it slowed down, the lava layer became thicker, in some cases it towered up to 15 meters.

The slower advance of the lava gives people time to get their belongings to safety. In the municipality of Todoque, which is close to the sea, residents were accompanied to their homes by the Guardia Civil. “Everything that started as something extraordinary on Sunday, something beautiful to look at, turned into tragedy the next day,” a woman who owns a jewelry store told Reuters. Many of her friends would have lost everything. “Our hearts are broken.”

Spanish royal couple encourages people

Spain’s King Felipe VI. and Queen Letizia flew to the island. The royal couple first visited some of the more than 6,000 evacuees and encouraged them, as reported by the state TV broadcaster RTVE. Many of them lost all their belongings as a result of the volcanic eruption. Felipe and Letizia were accompanied by Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. They met representatives of the island government and wanted to get an impression of the destruction and the relief work with their own eyes while visiting the operations control center near the volcano.

The regional government of the Canary Islands imposed a restricted area within two nautical miles around the place where the calculations suggest that the lava could flow into the sea. However, it is uncertain whether the lava would still reach the coast two and a half kilometers away.

Volcanic eruption could take months

According to the Canarian volcano research institute Involcan, the Cumbre Vieja has been spewing out between 6000 and 11,500 tons of sulfur dioxide every day since the beginning of the eruption. The cloud has already reached the coast of Morocco and should later arrive over mainland Spain before moving on towards the Balearic Islands and southern France. Calculations assume that the cloud could cover the entire western Mediterranean and a large part of the North African Maghreb region.

The experts fear that toxic gases could form if the hot lava flows into the water. Explosions of glowing lava rocks and boiling hot tidal waves are also possible, according to the USGS earthquake monitoring station. According to experts, the aftermath of the outbreak could last between three and twelve weeks. Involcan recently stated that it used data from previous eruptions in the Canary Islands in its calculations, which, like the most recent eruption, were accompanied by violent lava flows and continued seismic activity.

Cumbre Vieja (German: Alter Summit) is a volcanic chain almost 2000 meters high and about 14 kilometers long in the south of La Palma. The volcano last erupted in 1949 and 1971.

Lava, ash and smoke up to 4200 meters above sea level

The Cumbre Vieja has been spitting ash, rocks and lava at a temperature of 1000 degrees since Sunday. Seismic activity on La Palma had increased before the eruption and has remained high since then; according to the Guardia Civil, it has now stabilized. Liquid lava, ash and smoke continued to be hurled up to 4,200 meters from the volcanic opening, Involcan said. This recently fueled concerns about the safety of the airspace over the island and whether it can remain open. According to information from the Spanish air traffic control Enaire, two areas above the affected area have been declared no-fly zones so that rescue services can move freely.

The Canaries, which also include the popular holiday islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Lanzarote, are of volcanic origin. The last eruption of the Cumbre Vieja occurred in 1971.

source site