EL PASO, Canary Islands (AP) – Several small earthquakes rocked the Spanish island of La Palma off northwest Africa, and kept nerves on edge as rivers of volcanic lava continued to flow into the sea on Tuesday and a new vent opened in the mountainside.
After moving downhill through the island’s countryside since Sunday’s eruption, the lava is gradually approaching the more densely populated shoreline.
Authorities said a river of lava was approaching the Todoque neighborhood, where more than 1,000 people live and where emergency services were preparing evacuations.
Some 6,000 people on La Palma have so far been evacuated and 183 houses damaged, government spokeswoman Isabel Rodríguez said after a cabinet meeting in Madrid.
“The truth is that it is a tragedy to see people lose their properties,” said municipal worker Fernando Díaz in the town of El Paso, although he noted that people were also suffering by not knowing the fate of their homes while the police kept away to the people. lava flows.
“For the lucky ones, they would have a bit of peace knowing that their homes have not been affected,” he said. “This uncertainty is complicated.”
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The new vent is located 900 meters north of the Cumbre Vieja mountain range, where the volcano first erupted after a week of thousands of small earthquakes.
That so-called earthquake swarm warned authorities that an eruption was likely and allowed many people to evacuate, avoiding casualties.
The new fissure opened after what the Canary Islands Institute of Volcanology said was a 3.8 magnitude earthquake on Monday night.
La Palma, with a population of about 85,000 people, is part of the volcanic Canary Islands.
Lava by Tuesday had covered 106 hectares of land, according to the European Union Earth Observation Program, Copernicus.
Unstoppable rivers of lava, up to twenty feet high, rolled down the slopes, burning and crushing everything in their path. #Spain #Canary Islands #Volcano
Unstoppable rivers of lava, up to twenty feet high, rolled down the slopes, burning and crushing everything in their path.
The head of the regional government of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, said that the authorities will request financial assistance from the European Union to help reconstruction.
He said the damages already amounted to well over 400 million euros, qualifying the archipelago for emergency aid from the EU.
He described the region as a “catastrophic zone” and said he would request money to rebuild road and water supply networks and create temporary shelter for families who have lost their homes and farmland, and sometimes their livelihoods.
The King of Spain Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will visit the affected area on Thursday.
Authorities said the rate of advance of the lava appeared to have slowed down and they did not expect it to reach the sea before Wednesday at the earliest, Spanish private news agency Europa Press reported.
When it reaches the Atlantic Ocean, it could cause explosions and produce clouds of toxic gas. Scientists monitoring lava measured its temperature at more than 1,000 C.
Scientists say that lava flows could last for weeks or months. The volcano has been spewing between 8,000 and 10,500 tons of sulfur dioxide a day, the Institute of Volcanology said.
– Barry Hatton contributed from Lisbon, Portugal.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com