One of the volcanoes of the Cumbre Vieja National Park, in La Palma, 85,000 inhabitants, one of the eight islands that make up the Canary archipelago, began to erupt this afternoon, half a century after the last eruption recorded on the island in the ocean Atlantic which is part of the overseas territories of Spain. The eruption was preceded by 22,000 micro seismic events that began a week ago.
The volcano woke up at 15.15 local time today, 16.15 in Italy: first an earthquake of magnitude 4.2, then from the top a high plume of vapors and ash came out, then tall fountains of lava, finally the magma began to gush out which has already reached some connecting roads in the upper part of the island in the area of cabeza de Vaca, on the west side.
The local authorities, with the help of the army, have already evacuated sick people or people with walking problems and some farms in the nearest villages from the area, transferring them to one of the five assistance centers immediately set up. According to the mayor of El Paso, the closest and most endangered center, about 300 people were taken away. Local authorities have warned the population of the danger, inviting them to “exercise the utmost caution” and to stay away from the area and the roads that cross it. The Cumbre Vieja volcanic complex, whose highest peak reaches 1949 meters, occupies two thirds of the 708 square kilometers of the island’s surface.
It had been quiet since 1971 when a sudden eruption of another volcano in the complex, Teneguia, went on for several days and even killed one, a hiker who, getting too close to the mouths, was hit by an explosion while taking photos. . Before that, in the twentieth century there was only one more eruption, in 1949, of yet another culcano of the compelsso, the San Juan. The most serious and disastrous eruption dates back to 1430, according to the Spanish National Geographic Institute, the equivalent of our National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who was about to leave for New York for the UN General Assembly, decided to change his program and immediately go to the island to check the situation closely, as he himself said with a tweet .