EFE.- The residents of the nuclei closest to the new volcano that emerged this Sunday in Cabeza de Vaca, in La Palma (Spanish archipelago of the Canaries), have gone from the expectation generated by a natural spectacle of similar proportions to the desolation of contemplating how the lava buries “the work of a lifetime.”
From the town of Tajuya, in the municipality of El Paso, the eruption is clearly observed and how the lava runs down a slope that is being transformed by the volcanic material that does not stop emerging from the cone of the volcano.
But, above all, a huge roar is heard, “as if it were a battalion of fighter planes,” says a neighbor of the town.
What for some represents a unique experience, for others is turning into a nightmare, a personal tragedy, because they have lost their properties or are certain that they will lose them. There is nothing that can stop the advance of the lava.
Desireé is a neighbor of Todoque, the neighborhood where the laundry goes and she fears the damage her home may suffer.
She is one of those who looks at the volcano with distaste. The noise bothers him, it has not let him sleep all night.
The least of it is the noise. Desirée was able to save her animals on Sunday, but she is afraid for her house, because she knows that “hundreds” of houses have been razed.
“It is my home of all my life,” he tells Efe. “This is not easy, not easy at all,” he continues.
Some evicted residents are in the square of the local hermitage of San Martín de Porres, which has become a privileged viewpoint of the volcano, but they do not want to talk and wait, anxious, news about whether their properties have been affected.
Most have found accommodation in the homes of relatives and friends because “here everyone knows each other and helps each other.”
Arantxa lives in an agricultural area in the municipality of Los Llanos de Aridane and, although she has not been evacuated, she is nervous, “with her suitcase ready.”
She is very worried, because the lava buries fields and houses. “Entire farms are loaded (destroyed),” lamented this woman, who wonders how those lands will be when the volcano stops.
In addition, he points out that many of these houses are “self-built” and many do not have insurance. While he acknowledges that public administrations do what they can, “there are no magic formulas,” he recalls.
Meanwhile, the eruption continues and the lava moves down the slope. He has already crossed the road and continues on his way to the coast, where this local evening is expected to arrive.
On the sides of the wash, numerous sources of fire are observed, which are burning the surroundings.
Another resident of the area, who experienced the eruption of the Teneguía volcano fifty years ago also on La Palma, emphasizes that it had greater proportions, but draws attention to something else: this volcano can cause more serious damage.
“There was not so much danger,” adds another local, who also witnessed the 1971 eruption. Of course, she remembers that then the ashes even reached the other end of the island.
While the neighbors contemplate the volcano, a helicopter flies over the area, to take images and obtain new details about the evolution of the wash.
For now, the lava has already changed the landscape. Where before there were pines and montebajo, now there are several smoky peaks, formed by the material expelled by the volcano.
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The lava flow caused by the eruption of the volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma has an average height of six meters, has so far emitted between 6,000 and 9,000 tons of sulfur dioxide per day and is advancing at 700 meters per hour, devastating its passage houses, crops and infrastructures.
So far, the eruption of the volcano in the municipality of El Paso has not caused personal victims, but it is leaving a “desolate” situation in the area, as explained by the president of the Cabildo, Mariano Hernández Zapata, since the lava “literally eats houses , infrastructures and crops that he finds on his way to the coast of the Aridane valley ”.
With just 24 hours left until the eruption, which took place at 3:12 p.m. on Sunday, the new volcano of La Palma, an island that is part of the Atlantic archipelago of the Canary Islands, has already emitted between 6,000 and 9,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2) per day, according to the first estimate of the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan).
Meanwhile, more than 5,000 people remain evacuated from their homes to guarantee their safety in the face of this natural disaster that has led the Military Emergency Unit (UME) of the Spanish Army to deploy 67 members and 30 vehicles in La Palma.
This military contingent will increase throughout the morning until reaching 180 troops and 57 vehicles, while three more seaplanes are expected to arrive in the early afternoon, as reported by the Spanish Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, in an interview on Antena 3 Televisión.
The minister has also declared that the possibility of sending some type of material and personnel specialized in gases is being analyzed in case it is necessary and the Navy is prepared in case it is necessary to “make some type of approach by sea.”
The president of the Red Cross in the Canary Islands, Antonio Rico, has described this natural disaster as a “true catastrophe”, who has warned of the possibility of generating “a deterioration of coexistence” on the island of La Palma, due to the many neighbors who visit to see their normal activity interrupted for an unpredictable time and that they will “leave behind” a good part of their history and their lives.
The Red Cross has displaced twenty personnel to La Palma who have joined the other 15 who were already working on the island to give support to the people housed in the shelter set up in a former military facility located in Santa Cruz de La Palma, as well as to tourists and security and emergency personnel deployed in the area.
This organization is part of the Civil Protection Plan in which all the administrations involved in this geological phenomenon intervene, including the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, who has been on the island since Sunday.
Sánchez, accompanied by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, visits this morning the citizens who have been evacuated from their homes and who are staying at the El Fuerte barracks, in Breña Baja, and in the afternoon he plans to tour the area affected by the lava flows together with the president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres.
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