The volcano on La Palma remains active. The bad news from the experts: It could go on for a long time. From Rome there are comforting words from Pope Francis.
Santa Cruz de La Palma – For a week the volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma, which belongs to Spain, has been spitting ash, smoke, rocks and lava – the damage is immense, and the volcanologists cannot predict an end.
The state TV broadcaster RTVE reported on Sunday that it could go on for weeks or even months. Due to large amounts of volcanic ash, commercial air traffic with the “beautiful island”, as it is also called in Spain, was interrupted.
Nobody has been injured so far, but the lava, which is around 1,000 degrees Celsius, has already burned and crushed 461 buildings on its way towards the sea since September 19, including a good 300 residential buildings. About 6,200 people had to be brought to safety. Many have nothing left. “Everything I still have is in this bag,” said 46-year-old María Lorena Brito Rodríguez of the newspaper “El Mundo”. Her house below the volcano was also destroyed by the lava.
The volcano in the area of Cumbre Vieja in the south of the island does not yet have an official name. The black lava mass, which is up to 15 meters thick, will take months to cool down. It has already buried 212 hectares under itself, the equivalent of almost 300 soccer fields. There will be no building or agriculture there for decades, the island’s main source of income. The regional government estimates the damage on the island with 83,000 inhabitants to be at least 400 million euros.
Meanwhile, the willingness to help is enormous. There are so many donations in kind for the volcano victims that they can hardly be stored, reported RTVE. That is why there is already a waiting list for those willing to help. Most of the evacuees stayed with relatives or in other private homes on the island. Those who were initially taken to barracks were distributed to hotels.
The authorities want to start building replacement housing as soon as possible. On Tuesday, the government in Madrid wants to declare the island a disaster area at a cabinet meeting. Then relief measures can be taken more quickly. dpa
