Lava outflow in main cone of La Palma volcano

The Cumbre Vieja eruption is as alive as on the first day, almost a month after it started. The volcano's lava overflowed this afternoon from the main cone, as can be seen in the video released by the Canary Islands Volcanological Institute.

What is worrying now is the advance of one of the lava flows –the one that advances towards the northwest–, which this Thursday has forced the evacuation of some 300 people from Los Llanos de Aridane, an area where 800 residents were evacuated on Tuesday. With these, there are already more than 7,000 people who have had to leave their homes since the eruption began in La Palma.

The situation right now is that on top of first lava flow, which stopped days ago, there is a new flow which is moving in a northwesterly direction and has forked into two appendages: one that until yesterday had "high intensity" and covered a lot of ground, and a second one that went through an industrial estate a few days ago and has now covered a football field, the technical director of Pevolca, Miguel Angel Morcuende, explained.

Miguel Angel Morcuende has indicated that the latest evacuations have been made precisely because of the advance of these two fronts and has meant the eviction of all the people who still remained in the neighbourhood of Laguna. The technical director of the Pevolca has specified that many residents had already left the area voluntarily and had been housed in second homes or in the homes of relatives or friends.

Morcuende said that the two fronts "are losing strength and ability to move over the territory. Regarding the front that has destroyed the supermarket, he pointed out that it is a structure with a lot of volume because it has swallowed a lot of material from buildings that make it difficult slower, since it has lost a lot of fluidity and has gained viscosity.