New milestone of the La Palma volcano in its destructive advance. The lava ejected from Cumbre Vieja this afternoon reached 998.4 hectares of land and has almost completely buried Los Guirres beach. The magma has destroyed or affected 2,724 buildings and some 290 hectares of crops, mainly banana trees. Two streams remain active since September 19, one of them has reached the sea on Wednesday morning and has come into contact with the fajana that was formed as of September 28.
The remaining nine languages remain paralyzed, especially those named 8 and 11, which threaten, respectively, the towns of La Laguna to the north of the lava front and the Aniceto Way to the south.
Seismicity has again made its mark on the island in recent hours. The spokeswoman for the scientific committee, María José Blanco, highlighted in her appearance that the deep, which is located more than 20 kilometers from the earth’s crust, has rebounded after several days of setbacks. The farthest earthquakes were the first to cease in the El Hierro eruption 10 years ago, so they are considered a measure of the future behavior of the volcano.
This increase in seismicity in the last hours could be the harbinger of a rebound in volcanic activity, as has happened on other occasions during the eruptive process, although it is still “early” to draw conclusions, according to the National Geographic Institute (IGN) . Itahiza Domínguez, a seismologist with the state organization, points out that it is convenient to wait for the analysis of the rest of the variants. “You have to take it with care,” he warned. “It could be a symptom of the reactivation of deep magma reservoirs” or have “other implications”, such as, for example, that the system is “suddenly readjusting” due to an emptying that “already occurred”. Thus, the largest earthquake was one of 4.8, registered 34 kilometers deep in Villa de Mazo at 11:10 (local time), and has been felt throughout La Palma and in neighboring islands such as El Hierro. with an intensity of IV on a scale from I to XII.
Seismicity is not the only variable that has clouded hopes of an early cessation of the eruption. Sulfur dioxide emissions, a variable that measures the strength of the volcano, have risen again in recent hours and have reached values between 31,000 and 43,000 tons per day, compared to the range of 9,000 and 13,000 measured this Tuesday, when the Scientists observed that the eruption entered a “stable phase”. In any case, María José Blanco stressed that the analysis of satellite images does reflect a downward trend since last September 23, when maximums exceeding 50,000 tons per day of this gas were registered.
Air quality has allowed face-to-face classes to resume in the educational centers of Los Llanos de Aridane, El Paso, Tazacorte, Puntagorda and Tijarafe this Wednesday, after seven days of online teaching. The Ministry of Education has made this decision after the improvement in air quality in the five municipalities, which goes from extremely unfavorable to unfavorable. However, he advises moving the activity from the outside to the inside and reducing the physical effort to 30 minutes.
Irrigation boats
Irrigators in the southwest of the island will have the help of a ship from the Spanish Navy to gain access to their banana farms by sea, so that they can carry out maintenance work despite the roadblocks. This has been a procedure long used in times past by island farmers.
Currently, farmers in the important banana region of Puerto Naos and La Bombilla (southwest of the island) take more than an hour and a half to reach their crops by road, since the usual roads have been buried by the lava flows from the volcano. With this operation requested by the Cabildo de la Palma, the Navy will guarantee transport between the five miles that separate the port of Tazacorte and the beach of Puerto Naos in 20 minutes, and it is expected to make an average of three trips a day.
This is not the only new measure regarding the island’s agricultural activity. Local bananas damaged by the ash may be marketed as of Thursday thanks to an order published this Wednesday by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and which allows a temporary exemption from certain requirements of the marketing standard for these products.
Palm farmers have complained countless times that the ash affects the epidermis of the fruit, but leaves the pulp intact. These superficially damaged bananas cannot be sold in supermarkets, but they can be served in restaurants and free food distributions.
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