La Palma: A volcano erupted on the Spanish Canary Island of los angeles Palma on Sunday, sending lava shooting into the air and streaming in rivers towards houses in two villages from the Cumbre Vieja park within the south of the island.
Authorities had begun evacuating the infirm and a few livestock from nearby villages before the eruption at 3:15 p.m. (1415 GMT) on a wooded slope within the sparsely populated Cabeza de Vaca area, consistent with the islands’ government.Two hours later, with lava edging down the hillside from five fissures torn into the hillside, the municipality ordered the evacuation of 4 villages, including El Paso and Los Llanos de Aridane.
After nightfall, video footage showed fountains of lava shooting many metres into the sky, and a minimum of three incandescent orange rivers of molten rock pouring down Capitol Hill , tearing gashes into woods and farmland, and spreading as they reached lower ground.
One stream, several hundred metres long and tens of metres wide, crossed a road and commenced engulfing scattered houses in El Paso . Video footage shared on social media, which Reuters has been unable to verify, showed the lava entering a house.
“When the volcano erupted today, i used to be scared. For journalists it’s something spectacular, for us it’s a tragedy. i feel the lava has reached some relatives’ houses,” local resident Isabel Fuentes, 55, told Spanish television TVE.
“I was 5 years old when the volcano last erupted (in 1971). You never recover from a eruption ,” added Fuentes, who said she had moved to a different house on Sunday for her safety.
‘STAY IN YOUR HOUSES’
Canary Islands President Angel Victor Torres told a news conference on Sunday night that 5,000 people had been evacuated and no injuries had been reported thus far .
“It isn’t foreseeable that anyone else will need to be evacuated. The lava is moving towards the coast and therefore the damage are going to be material. consistent with experts there are about 17-20 million cubic meters of lava,” he said.
Flights to and from the Canaries were continuing as normal, the airport operator Aena said.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez arrived in La Palma, the foremost northwesterly island of the archipelago, late on Sunday for talks with the islands’ government on managing the eruption.
“We have all the resources (to affect the eruption) and every one the troops, the citizens can rest easy,” he said.
Stavros Meletlidis, a doctor of volcanology at the Spanish Geographical Institute, said the eruption had torn five holes within the hillside which he couldn’t make certain how long it might last.
“We need to measure the lava a day which will help us to figure it out.”
King Felipe spoke with Torres and was following the developments, the royal household said.
La Palma had been on high alert after quite 22,000 tremors were reported within the space of every week in Cumbre Vieja, a sequence of volcanoes that last had a serious eruption in 1971 and is one among the foremost active volcanic regions within the Canaries.
In 1971, one man was killed as he was taking photographs near the lava flows, but no property was damaged.
