Lava doesn’t stop flowing into the ocean. La Palma authorities have ordered another lockdown

Authorities on the island of La Palma tonight ordered 3,500 residents to stay at home. The reason for this is the toxic gases released into the air on the west coast of the island, where a pile of lava has been flowing into the sea for several days.

The new regulation for residents of La Palma’s west coast is linked to deteriorating meteorological conditions, which make toxic gases from the volcano less diffuse and less in the air.

Officials called on people in the vicinity of lava to close windows and doors and turn off air conditioning as it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. According to the ABC newspaper report, they should use the phone only when necessary to avoid blocking emergency lines and watch television or radio to update warnings.

Some locals then decided to leave the area altogether. “I’m leaving because ash cloud Getting closer. And who knows if the gases will be found here,” he told the newspaper. Country Enrique Ponsa, who loads only the essentials in the car and leaves the area with the whole family. It leads to the capital, Santa Cruz de la Palma. According to Ponsa, his residence Los Llanos de Ariadne is home to only a minimal number of locals and without respiratory protection you will hardly meet anyone outside.

One of the few locals is 70-year-old María Pilar Rodriguez, who lives here with her husband and daughter. “It was terrible for us and it’s getting worse. My husband has a lung problem, but we’re stuck here. It’s like a pandemic, and what’s worse is that many of our family members recently It’s a tragedy,” Rodriguez told El País.

Tonight seismologists recorded ten tremors of 0.6 to three degrees in the volcanic region. “The seismic activity of the volcano has begun to increase and has reached values ​​similar to those in the first days after the eruption,” said the daily El Pais, quoting an expert from the National Geological Institute.

According to him, more than 80 million cubic meters of lava have erupted from the volcano since the beginning of the eruption, which is almost twice the volume of the volcano erupted on the island during the 1971 eruption. It lasted for three and a half weeks. .. The current eruption is going on for 13 days i.e. 19th September and when it will end it cannot be guessed yet. It may take a few more weeks.

According to satellite monitoring of the Copernicus programme, lava has already covered 370 hectares of land on the island of La Palma, buried 880 homes and damaged more than a hundred buildings. The lava mass has destroyed nearly thirty kilometers of roads, with further damage being caused by banana growers, which account for about one-third of the Canary Islands’ total banana production.

According to local media, ash emanating from the volcano has already covered 3,300 hectares (33 sq km) on an island with an area of ​​708 square kilometers and a population of 83,500. The government of the Canary Islands has so far estimated damage to infrastructure and homes at at least 400 million euros (about 10 billion CZK).