Spanish Island Shuts Airport as Volcanic Eruption Intensifies
La Palma: Volcanic explosions spewed hotdog lava high into the air on La Palma on Saturday as a replacement emission vent opened, forcing the tiny Spanish island to shut its airport and causing long queues for boats off the island.
The Cumbre Vieja volcano, which began erupting last Sunday, is entering a replacement explosive phase.
The Canary Islands Volcanology Institute, Involcan, said the new emission vent that had opened was to the west of the principal vent.
The national Geographical and Mining Institute said its drones had shown the volcano’s cone had broken. “It isn’t unusual during this sort of eruption that the cone of the volcano fractures. A crater is made that doesn’t support its own weight and therefore the cone breaks,” Miguel Angel Morcuende, director of volcano response committee Pevolca, told a press conference on Saturday. “This partial rupture happened overnight. Morcuende said the evacuations currently in situ would be maintained for an additional 24 hours as a precaution.
The volcano has spewed out thousands of plenty of lava, destroyed many houses and made the evacuation of nearly 6,000 people since it began erupting last Sunday.
La Palma, with a population of over 83,000, is one among an archipelago making up the Canary Islands within the Atlantic.Spanish airport operator Aena said the island’s airport had closed.
“La Palma airport is inoperative thanks to ash accumulation. Cleaning tasks have started, but things may change at any time,” it tweeted.
Workers swept volcanic ash off the runway, electronic boards showed cancelled flights and therefore the departures hall was quiet as some people arriving at the airport discovered they might not be ready to fly out.
There were long queues at La Palma’s main port as people, some whose flights had been cancelled, tried to urge ferries off the island. “I am getting to Barcelona. But because we’ll not fly we are taking the ferry to Los Cristianos (on Tenerife island) and from there we will attend the airport and fly to Barcelona,” said Carlos Garcia, 47.
People evacuated from three more towns on Friday won’t be ready to return to their homes to retrieve their belongings due to the “evolution of the volcanic emergency,” local authorities said. “Volcanic surveillance measurements administered since the start of the eruption recorded the highest-energy activity thus far during Friday afternoon,” emergency services said. At the quiet port of Tazacorte, fishermen described the devastating effect the eruption has had on their livelihoods.
“We haven’t been out fishing during a week, the world is closed,” said Jose Nicolas San Luis Perez, 49, who lost his house within the eruption.
