Canary Islands: the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano in ten spectacular images – archyworldys

The 85,000 inhabitants of La Palma, an island in the Spanish Canary Islands archipelago, had not experienced this since 1971. On Sunday, September 19, the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted, after a week under surveillance, due to an increase in seismic activity. 5,000 people were evacuated. Cumbre Vieja spits out large columns of smoke and spreads lava flows with a temperature of 1,000 ° C, advancing at 700 meters per hour, according to the Canary Islands Volcanic Institute. The images are impressive.

1. The eruption began “in the Cabeza de Vaca area of ​​El Paso” on Sunday a little after 3 p.m. local time, the island’s local government said on its Twitter account, where the maximum alert level was been established.

2. The explosion sent a huge cloud of smoke and small particles into the air. The plume rose well above the clouds.

3. Cumbre Vieja had been rumbling for a week. Thousands of low-magnitude earthquakes, up to 4 on the Richter scale, have been recorded since last Saturday.

4. 5,000 residents of La Palma were evacuated. They lived in the surrounding villages. The president of the region underlined the “luck” that this eruption took place “in a depopulated area”.

5. The eruption, the first on the island of La Palma in 50 years, has already caused extensive damage. A first count shows a hundred houses destroyed.

6. “The lava left absolutely nothing in its path”, testified Sergio Rodriguez, the mayor of El Paso, one of the four villages evacuated preventively by the authorities.

7. According to the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, more than 200 reinforcements from the security forces have been mobilized. The activity of the island’s airport is not affected for the moment.

8. The Canary Islands archipelago is the result of volcanic activity, and there are many volcanoes scattered throughout the territory.

9. According to the projections of the government of La Palma, the lava flows descending from the volcano, located in the center-west of the island, should move towards the sea in the south-west of the island.

10. These flows have already affected evacuated homes. They pass through wooded areas, which gives rise to fears of fires.