Documents, clothing, furniture, bicycles, mattresses: those affected by a volcanic eruption on La Palma continue to try to save at least parts of their household items from the hot lava.
Madrid / La Palma – On the volcanic island of La Palma, the 1000 degrees hot lava buries one house after the other on its way to the sea.
The affected residents tried desperately on Wednesday to save the most important parts of their household items, as the state TV broadcaster RTVE reported.
In the village of Todoque, memorabilia, clothing, furniture, bicycles, mattresses and many other things that were not nailed down were loaded onto trucks. On it sat weeping people who had to leave their homes forever. “The most important thing is the property documents, because they will ask us about them later when there is nothing left here,” said a local resident. There were still no injuries.
The volcano in the Cumbre Vieja in the south of the Canary Island, which erupted on Sunday for the first time in 50 years, gave people at least a small grace period, because the lava flows were advancing more and more slowly. While the lava mass, several meters high, initially rolled downhill towards the sea at 700 meters per hour, it was only 200 meters on Wednesday. So far, at least 200 houses have been completely destroyed, many others badly damaged.
Regional head of government Ángel Víctor Torres put the damage, including destroyed plantings and infrastructure, at “certainly more than 400 million euros”.
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It was still unclear when the lava would reach the coast. The authorities then expect poisonous fumes that are produced when the lava comes into contact with the salty sea water. A wind from the northeast, however, drove smoke and ash out into the Atlantic, where the smaller island of El Hierro, 75 kilometers away, with around 11,000 inhabitants, is located.
La Palma is located in the north-west of the Canary Islands, an archipelago of volcanic origin in the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa. It is 85 kilometers from the nearest larger island of Tenerife, which is also very popular with German tourists, and 57 kilometers from La Gomera. Mass tourism like on the better known Canary Islands Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote does not exist on La Palma. dpa
