Tremblors and Volcanic Eruptions: Devastation, La Palma

"We have a flow to the north that is moving quickly ... this lava comes from more interior areas of the crater and its temperature is about 1,250 degrees."

Miguel Angel Moreuende, director, volcano response committee, La Palma 

"The ash cloud originating from the volcanic eruption makes it necessary to maintain the temporary stoppage of flights to La Palma..."

"The flights scheduled for today have been cancelled."

Aena, Spain's airport operator

 

"Activity is picking up again. The volcano has been producing intermittent explosions with ash emissions from the new cone, at intervals of roughly every 10 minutes."

Update Mon 27 Sep 2021 12:07

"To put the eruption into perspective, the newly lava-covered surface of 221 hectares (2,21 sq km) corresponds to 0,3 percent of the island's total surface of 708 sq km."

"It is interesting to look at the volume of lava erupted so far: if an average thickness of the lava flows of 10 m is assumed and the total surface covered is 212 hectares (=100x100=10,000 sq meters), the volume is approx. 10x2,120,000 or roughly 20 million cubic meters."
"This does not include the volume of the cone and the erupted ash, but likely the latter are much smaller than the volume of the lava flows and can be neglected. In any case, the volume of erupted material is in the same order of size as the previously modeled magma volume estimate that had been intruded during the earthquake swarm (also around 20 or more million cubic meters)."
"If these figures are correct (which is far from certain), the eruption indeed might have exhausted the available magma, but the near future will certainly tell."

VolcanoDiscovery

The Cumbre Vieja volcano spews lava, ash and smoke as seen from Los Llanos de Aridane on the Canary island of La Palma in Sept. 26, 202 (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN/AFP via Getty Images)

A week after the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma erupted, the airport has been re-opened, but all flights in or out have been cancelled. The volcano continues to spout lava, emitting ash clouds over the area surrounding it, forcing people to cover themselves with umbrellas to keep from being entirely plastered with thick falling volcanic ash. "They laugh at us because of the umbrella, but if we don't use it, we end up covered in ash", explained Waldo Nasco, an engineer.

Two active lava flows are now in action, one is a swiftly-flowing mass to the north, the other a slower one flowing to the south. Drone footage capturing photographs for Reuters shows a rapid, wide stream of red hot lava down the crater's slopes, inching its way past homes with swaths of land and buildings entirely engulfed by the black mass of languidly moving, older lava.

In Todoque, the village church which had narrowly missed being engulfed in lava days earlier when lava stopped just short of it, was destroyed on Sunday, the bell tower crumpling under the weight of the flow. Director of the island's volcano response committee, Morcuende, declared that those people who had been evacuated from three towns under the volcano would now be safe to return to their homes; they are the fortunate ones whose homes are still standing.

People swept away volcanic ash from outside the environs of the church of Colegio Sagrada Familia de Nazaret, after mass on Sunday. Pope Francis, during his weekly blessing in St.Peter's Square, sent a message of "closeness and solidarity" to those affected on La Palma. 

 

A new explosive phase took place on Friday, as the uncertainty of when the eruptions would cease and the Cumbre Vieja volcano would return to its normally quiescent state consumed the minds of the 83,000 population of the island in the Canary Islands group.

Ash emission this morning, September 27 (image: Eva Kubelková)