The lava flows from the Cumbre Vieja volcano continue to carry everything in their path as they descend towards the coast of the Spanish island of La Palma, where their arrival is feared due to the possible emission of toxic gases.
This eruption, which began on Sunday on this island in the Canary archipelago, has already caused the displacement of 6,100 people, including 400 tourists. “who have been removed from risk areas” and settled in Tenerife, according to a statement from the regional government of the Canary Islands on Tuesday evening.
Lava “inexorably descends towards the sea and nothing can be done about it. This is all the powerlessness in the face of this flow (…) which carries everything in its path (…) and will carry away other houses “, warned the president of the Canary Islands region, Angel Victor Torres.
If this eruption, the first since 1971 on this island populated by nearly 85,000 inhabitants, did not cause any death or injury, the damage was enormous, greatly exceeding the 400 million euros, noted Mr. Torres, who underlined that the Canaries could benefit from European funds to rebuild.
The images disseminated by the media, the authorities and residents show black and orange flows several meters high slowly descending the sides of the volcano and engulfing trees, roads and houses.
Lava has destroyed so far 185 buildings, of which 63 would be dwellings, announced the regional government. It covers 103 hectares, according to the European system of geospatial measurements Copernicus.
Toxic gases
The arrival of the flows in the sea, initially scheduled for Monday evening, but delayed due to the slowing of the flow, is feared because it can give rise to explosions of pieces of lava, waves of boiling water or the emanation. toxic gases, according to the United States Institute of Geological Studies (USGS).
“The clouds generated by the interaction of seawater and lava are acidic” and “can be dangerous if you are too close”, explains Patrick Allard, from the Institut de Géophysique du Globe in Paris.
Located about 2 km from the sea, the lava is currently advancing by 200 meters per hour. Authorities are not, however, in a position to say precisely when it might reach the ocean.
The government of the Canaries, which has advised locals to cover their noses and mouths when going out, has decreed a “two nautical mile exclusion radius” around the place where the arrival of the flows is planned and asked the curious not to go there.
Still in La Palma, where it has been since Sunday evening, the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for caution. “Avoid getting close to the magma or the volcano and leave the roads as free as possible” so as not to interfere with possible new evacuations, he insisted.
On the night of Monday to Tuesday, the appearance of a new eruptive mouth, the ninth, in the town of El Paso, led to theevacuation of 500 additional people.
The opening of this mouth came after a new earthquake with a magnitude of 4.1, recorded Monday at 9:32 p.m. (8:32 p.m. GMT), said the Canary Islands Volcanological Institute (Involcan).
Cumbre Vieja spews columns of smoke reaching several hundred meters high and between 8,000 and 10,500 tonnes of sulfur dioxide per day, according to Involcan, which estimates that the eruption could last, “several weeks or even months” . The airspace, however, was not closed.
Reference-feedproxy.google.com