Excavators remove lava from the La Palma de La Laguna volcano

Excavators are struggling to recover part of the La Laguna neighborhood, in the municipality of The Plains of Aridane, so that some of the neighbors who remain out of their homes because of the eruption can return. The Public Works engineer and coordinator of the Group of Essential Services designated for the volcanic emergency, Amílcar Cabrera, is in charge of directing these works that will allow all residents to access this nucleus starting tomorrow. “All the provisions for essential services are fully established. We have water and electricity, and with that they can come backr”, indicates.

The works consist of removing the lava to open a security perimeter. At the same time the parameters are checked for any harmful gases remaining. One of the most damaged infrastructures is the school. It will have to be the Ministry of Education “that declares its structural ruin,” says Cabrera, for the demolition of one of the affected units. The actions will also make it possible to recover the road from Cruz Chica to the La Laguna crossing and continue with the link to Tazacorte.

The task is to leave the road to the same level prior to September 19, the date on which the eruption was declared, to recover the entire urban sector, to which new asphalt will have to be applied “because the erosivity of the lava has eaten up everything,” emphasizes the engineer, who adds that “there is only land under the laundry. ” For this reason, the work they are carrying out will also allow the platform to be prepared and those essential services that are affected and whose pipes passed through the devastated area installed. Cabrera clarifies that the performance “is not only an experiment for future actions”, but also allows them to take samples to study the behavior of the lava, its temperature and gases according to its height. “It will give an idea of ​​how to proceed in larger lava thickness”.

The workers remove stones from the crossing of La Laguna that They can weigh up to 20 tons and are fracturing in hours. Its temperature is around 200 degrees. “At specific times we cool the washes using vats to make it easier to work with the machinery.” So far, breakers have not been needed. “Only with the mechanical action of the spoon we remove some blocks of considerable size,” he emphasizes.

In this way, the first phase of the actions consists of the liberation of the crossing of La Laguna towards Tazacorte, about 100 meters of road. The following phases will focus on continuing the work from La Laguna towards El Paso-Camino de la Cruz Chica, with approximately 200 meters of road to recover. It is expected to be completed in about a month and a half. There are other infrastructures that have become a symbol of the neighborhood, such as the Velia Society. Cabrera informs that the Los Llanos de Aridane City Council carries out the structural safety reports “that will indicate which buildings are those that have to be demolished or those that remain standing.” This intervention gives continuity to the wish expressed by all the institutions not to protect the land covered by the runoffs, for which it is still necessary to approve a new land use plan.

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In this situation, before being able to establish the following steps in relation to the reconstruction of palm infrastructures, you have to meet the deadlines stipulated by nature. Thus, once the eruption ceased, it is left to geologists to give the go-ahead to the recovery of the area. The professor of Urbanism at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, José María Ezquiaga, was one of the first to comment on the matter. It considers that the urban planning plans of La Palma should change based on the criteria of protection of nature and habitability. This urban planner continues to consider that there will be very high risk areas that will have to be depopulated and other milder ones in which it will be enough to prepare a contingency plan.