The La Palma volcano continues to enter the history books with a firm step. The most destructive eruption of all those that have devastated the archipelago is already the longest of those that have occurred on the island, after serving 12 weeks of life (84 days) this Sunday. These data allow it to surpass the one produced in Tehuya in 1585, also located on La Palma. Ahead, there are only the Volcán de Tao or del Clerigo, in Lanzarote (86 days in 1824); the eruption of Narices del Teide, in Tenerife (99 days in 1798) and the six years that the eruption in Timanfaya, in Lanzarote, lasted in 1730.
The two closest records seem perfectly achievable. Not in vain, the experts of the scientific committee of the Emergency Plan for Volcanic Risk of the Canary Islands (Pevolca) have explained this weekend that while there is still volcanic tremor (indicator that indicates the movement of fluids under the earth’s surface) and emission of dioxide of sulfur (an indicator that there is magma near the surface), the eruption at Cumbre Vieja, on La Palma, will continue despite the fact that the seismicity continues to be lower.
One of the most accepted theories about the creation of the Canary Islands holds that the archipelago is located on the African continental plate, which floats on the earth’s mantle in an easterly direction at a speed similar to that of fingernails. About 20 million years ago, the plate began to pass over the hot spot, which injected magma and began to create the first islands: Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. La Palma and El Hierro are the youngest islands, barely 1.8 and 1.2 million years old, respectively. The hot spot is still under them and that is why they have active volcanoes that make them grow in extension and surface.
Historical records cover approximately the last six centuries, a period in which more than twenty eruptions have been recorded in the Canary Islands. The Cumbre Vieja de La Palma, where the earth exploded on September 19, constitutes one of the most active volcanic complexes in the Canary Islands. Not surprisingly, there have been two of the last three eruptions recorded on the islands, that of the San Juan volcano (1949) and that of Teneguía (1971).
More than 1,600 buildings razed
In these 12 weeks, the eruption has destroyed 1,628 buildings, according to the General Directorate of the Land Registry, of which 1,304 are homes, 179 rooms for agricultural use, 74 factories and industrial buildings, 40 leisure and hospitality businesses, 15 schools, temples and spaces for public use. The most damaging days of the lava were September 20 and 29, when 159 and 151 properties were affected in just 24 hours, respectively. The land covered by the different flows reaches 1,173 hectares. To this extension must be added another not specified to date: the areas that the lava has not touched, but that are buried by the layer of ash, in some places several meters thick.
Unlike what happened these days in Indonesia, where 45 people have lost their lives due to the eruption of the Semeru volcano, in the Canary Islands there are no fatalities -although a case of a deceased is under investigation-, thanks to the evacuation of more than 7,000 inhabitants of the affected areas. Almost three months after the crisis began, only 30 families have been able to return to their homes in two neighborhoods of Los Llanos de Aridane, when the lava flow that threatened that area was considered paralyzed.
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