Last July 8, agents of the Seprona of the Civil Guard brought before the judge a neighbor of Los Llanos, on the island of La Palma, accused of a crime against spatial planning and urban planning, for the construction of several illegal buildings on a plot of his property, on the slopes of the Cumbre Vieja. Two months later, a huge wall of 12 meters high and about 600 wide incandescently lowers the slope, at temperatures above 1,300 degrees centigrade, and engulfing everything in its path.
The last Sunday September 19th, the measurements of the seismographic services and the suspicions of Civil Protection on the Isla Bonita, one of the smallest in the Canary archipelago, were confirmed. The volcano burst, now it has nine mouths, and began to spit tons of lava, toxic gases and lapilli (volcanic ash likely to be toxic and mechanically aggressive if breathed in).
According to government sources consulted by this newspaper, the laundry has already been swallowed about 300 buildings and a still incalculated number of farms. But the same sources warn that dozens of them were in an illegal situation, without records or licenses for occupation or exploitation … like those four neighboring houses denounced in July by the guards of the Nature Protection Service, whose patrol mission was precisely that of identify and report how many situations like this they will locate.
Illegal constructions in the municipality of Los Llanos, on the Canary Island of La Palma.
“They are not few, they can be counted by hundreds,” say political sources consulted, “is part of the custom of the smaller islands, and their economy, which is very precarious. “Now, when the eruption ends, that will be the biggest problem in rebuilding the western slope of Cumbre Vieja, essentially the municipality of Los Llanos, socioeconomically.
Imaginative solutions
A Canarian Government spokesperson contacted by EL ESPAÑOL admits that “There will be difficulties in granting aid and compensation” for this reason. But its Executive has already set out to seek imaginative solutions, “with internal forms.” For example, it has been achieved that the Notarial Association of the Canary Islands “offers to facilitate and recognize those people who did not have their properties properly registered”.
Cumbre Vieja La Palma eruption (9/21/21)
The dean, Alfonso Cavallé, recently explained that they will provide “notarial advice to recover destroyed documentation” and “to facilitate documentary evidence of existing rights”. The head of the Canarian school detailed that, indeed, “difficulties will arise to justify ownership or the existence of other rights.” But they will try to help resorting to “deposit contracts and other pre-contracts, as well as mortgages”.
Although this will not work for everyone. For example, for constructions like the four denounced in the case already described last July. According to the report of the complaint accessed by the newspaper fierigitalsur were detected only two weeks after the first series of 80 earthquakes in a single day they began to anticipate, on June 26, the current disaster.
Legally, the logical thing is that they end up demolished, but by a crane, the lava will not touch them: the plot was located in an area known as La Cuchilla, 10 kilometers north of Todoque, the district three kilometers west of the cliff that overlooks the sea and which is being swallowed up in these days by the unstoppable advance of the incandescent rocks.
Official sources of the island government confirm to this newspaper the concerns that arise in Moncloa these days. Pedro Sanchez is back on La Palma, accompanying Kings Felipe and Letizia in his visits to scientific facilities, firefighting crews, Civil Protection contingents and those affected evacuated: “There will be no shortage of aid, both public and private,” promised the Monarch.
The Kings Felipe and Letizia, together with Pedro Sánchez, visit the victims of the La Palma eruption.
The president was informed this Thursday, during his meetings with technicians and officials of the island administration, of the impending problem. The paperwork and records will be long so that your Government can properly draft the catastrophic zone decree that conveys the compensation.
Insular tradition
“It is true that there is a situation like this on islands like La Palma, in whose agricultural tradition it is that on the land even houses are built for relatives“Without any registration or license, admits a spokesman for the Canarian Executive.
But they are already getting to work in the island administration to look for other alternatives, beyond the offer of notaries. For example, they assure that it is possible to use “the aerial photographs that exist at the moment, and they are very detailed and exhaustive of that entire area.” Not surprisingly, the slope of Cumbre Vieja was put under intensive surveillance with planes and drones since last July. “With this, we will be able to verify the preexistence of certain constructions.”
In any case, another clarification from the Canarian Government spokesperson not only points to the registry gibberish, but confirms the deep-rooted tradition: “There are also constructions that were irregular at the time, but whose situation it had already prescribed and they had consideration of legality“. In this case, the grain of the chaff will also have to be separated.
The lava flow engulfing a road, in the municipality of Los Llanos (La Palma).
Focused on the emergency, the members of the insular Executive confess that there is no calculation not even outlined the number of homes built and businesses that operated irregularly. “But neither in this case we will leave anyone behind“They point out from the surroundings of Moncloa.” The management of aid will be complicated, but whoever was in that situation was already living in a precarious situation that has now worsened exponentially. “
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