MENU. Eruption in the Canaries: where are the main French and European volcanoes? – BFMTV

Vesuvius, Eyjafjöl, Etna … While the Canary Islands are facing an eruption, BFMTV.com takes stock of the European volcanoes likely to cause damage on the Old Continent.

While the Spanish island of La Palma had not experienced an eruption for 50 years, the Cumbre Vieja volcano woke up, forcing 6,000 people to leave their homes. If the airspace remains open for the moment, columns of smoke hundreds of meters high are visible and the damage is already enormous. According to the Canary Islands Volcanological Institute, the eruption could last “several weeks or even a few months”.

Are such lava flows possible elsewhere in Europe? The Canary Islands are far from being the only European territory with volcanoes, as our map below shows. We have listed in red those who have experienced at least one eruption since the beginning of the 20th century, specifying the date of the last major eruption, and in blue those considered inactive.

In Italy and even in Iceland, there are several active volcanoes. The eruption of Eyjafjöll in August 2010 is remembered in particular: air traffic was stopped for several days and dozens of people were stranded in foreign countries. Some volcanoes are still fatal: in July 2019, a hiker died while walking on the island of Stromboli, surprised by an eruption.

Volcanoes still active overseas

In mainland France, volcanoes are currently dormant. Most of them are concentrated in Auvergne, around the Massif Central. If they have not caused major damage in the recent history of the country, specialists point out that it is difficult to predict the future. Interviewed by France 3 in July 2020, Cyril Aumar, doctoral student at the Laboratoire Magmas et Volcans de Clermont-Ferrand, recalled that waking up is not impossible:

“We consider a volcano as” extinct “after 10,000 years of inactivity, so the Chaîne des Puys does not fit into this category. Recent studies explain that there may still be magma under the Chaîne des Puys but that it cannot rise to the surface because it is too viscous. (…) But at present there is no sign of resumption of activity of the Chaîne des Puys “.

A revival therefore seems unlikely today. Note that we also finds extinct volcanoes “in Corsica, in the Rhine ditch, the southern islands of the Indian Ocean, in Mayotte and in French Polynesia”.

It is also overseas that we find the only active volcanoes in our territory: in Guadeloupe, Reunion Island and Martinique. If the best known is generally the Piton de la Fournaise, which often erupts, the most dangerous is probably Mount Pelée in Martinique. In 1902, its eruption caused the death of at least 30,000 people.

In December 2020, the prefect of Martinique activated the first alert threshold, following several submarine earthquakes likely to wake up the volcano. Scientists at the Institut Physique du Globe de Paris have nevertheless assured that it is not the “warning signs of a rash”. The last, which dates back to the 1930s, had not caused casualties.