Forty years ago, on the night of November 13, 1985, Colombia experienced one of its greatest tragedies: the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano. After nearly seven decades of dormancy, the volcano awoke, and despite warnings from scientists, the country was unprepared for the catastrophe. A mudslide of mud and rocks—descending from 5,000 meters above sea level—buried the city of Armero, in the department of Tolima, wiping it off the map and causing the deaths of more than 23,000 people. That night, the face of Omaira Sánchez, a 13-year-old girl trapped in the mud, became a global symbol of pain and helplessness in the face of nature. Omaira ultimately died, surrounded by emergency services, who were powerless to save her life. Her farewell words, full of love and hope, became a poignant reminder of the devastation. Weekly report, from TVE, impacted an entire generation that the memory of their intense gaze continues to challenge.

Mount Etna, located on the Italian island of Sicily, erupted this Monday with a powerful explosion that released pyroclastic flows—a hot mixture of gases, ash, and rock fragments—sparking panic among the crowds of tourists walking nearby. The explosion generated an immense column of smoke visible from several locations. For example, from Catania, in southern Sicily, it was perfectly visible, yet the city's airport remained operational.

Early Wednesday morning, Etna's southeastern crater entered a new eruptive phase, with explosions, lava flows, and clouds of gas and ash. According to Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), lava fountains from what is considered Europe's most active volcano have reached between 200 and 300 meters above the vents at the top of the crater.

Early Wednesday morning, Etna's southeastern crater entered a new eruptive phase with explosions, lava flows, and clouds of gas and ash. The volcano erupted at altitudes of 1,500 feet (5,000 meters), rising to 1,000 feet (2,500 meters) above the vents at the top of the crater.

The eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano has gone through several explosive and effusive phases, in which the lava flowed steadily but advanced slowly. Now the volcano on La Palma has for some hours combined this rhythm with much faster lava effusions, which at some point geologists have described as a true magma "tsunami". The emergency services are awaiting the evolution of the eruption to decide whether to evacuate more citizens. This Thursday the authorities made 300 more residents leave the area of Los Llanos de Aridane. So far, 6,800 people have had to leave their homes because of the eruption.

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.

The new river of lava that was released on Saturday due to the collapse of the north face of the Cumbre Vieja volcano, on the island of La Palma, is carrying blocks of rock the size of a three-storey building, according to the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME), which has also published a video recorded from a drone, from very close to the new flow, in which the strength with which it descends and the size of the blocks it drags, "equivalent to a three-storey house", can be seen.

The north face of the eruption cone of the new volcano on La Palma collapsed early this morning, according to Itahiza Domínguez, from the Instituto Vulcanológico de las Canarias (Involcan). The expert, according to Efe, has stated through social networks that the collapse has generated lava flows in several directions.

Cumbre Vieja continues its activity and the intensity of the eruption has increased again. Since the early hours of the morning, a new lava flow originated last night in the area of the secondary vent is now flowing towards the sea, parallel to the main flow. As the director of volcanic surveillance of the Canary Islands Volcanology Institute (Involcan), Luca De Auria, explained to Radio Canaria, this new lava flow is not very big but it is reaching areas that had not been affected by lava before. It is not clear whether it will eventually reach the sea.

More fluid and faster. This is how the lava from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma is flowing again, after being inactive for a few hours on Monday. The magma is advancing towards the municipality of Tazacorte, towards the sea and is about a thousand metres from the coastline.

Cumbre Vieja volcano is once again spewing out smoke and lava after several hours of apparent seismic inactivity, which had given the islanders hope of a truce after a week of violent eruption. Now uncertainty is returning to La Palma, especially to Fuencaliente, on the south of the island, where at least 16 earthquakes have been detected. The eruption had stopped emitting pyroclastic material for two hours and although the Institute of Geoscience confirmed a "remarkable reduction" in seismic activity, geologists also called for caution and avoided being triumphalist after the sudden seismic stop. "We have to be very vigilant because the scenario can change quickly. It could be that the flow [of lava] has gone down; or it could continue, albeit with less quantity, in which case it could increase again," the Institute stressed, and argued that there are "few guarantees" that this stop is definitive.

The eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary island of La Palma continues to increase in intensity. After the volcano entered a more explosive phase yesterday and two new eruptive vents were opened, very close to each other, this Saturday another new vent has opened, located to the west of the main one, according to the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan). In addition, early this afternoon, the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain added that the volcano's cone has broken and left a new "enormous" flow - in the words of geologist Carlos Lorenzo - which is advancing towards the sea.

If you are very involved in social networks, surely these days you have started to see maps of sulfur dioxide dispersion (SO₂), animations that draw the possible movement of gas emissions from the La Palma volcano to the Peninsula. To what extent will it be possible to perceive the SO₂ of the eruption in Catalonia? At this stage there is no indication that it will be perceptible for the population. Although the wind dynamics will indeed be part of this sulphur dioxide flow towards the Peninsula, on the way it will be dispersed and will arrive in a much lower concentration than at the source. The levels of this gas will be higher in the upper layers of the atmosphere, but at the surface the increase of SO₂ may not be perceptible.

The lava from the Cumbre Vieja volcano, on the island of La Palma, continues to open up towards the sea little by little and has already covered 153 hectares, which have been swallowed up by rocks, fire and ash. This is the calculation made by the Canary Islands Volcanology Institute (Involcan) based on satellite images captured by the Copernicus programme: the latest map shows the extent of the lava at 8.14 am on Tuesday. Compared to the previous one, at 7.50 p.m. on Monday, the area covered by the eruption has increased from 103 to 153 hectares, about 50%.

The lava from the cumbre Vieja volcano, on the island of La Palma, has slowed down its movement towards the sea: from advancing 700 metres per hour just after it erupted, to slowing down to 120 metres per hour on Tuesday. However, despite its slower pace, it has already entered the village of Todoque, a small municipality of about 1,200 inhabitants, which had already been evacuated due to the appearance of a new eruptive mouth. The villagers were able to enter their houses for a while to take some of their belongings: some took photos and paintings, and those who had more time loaded appliances and furniture, as the village could be wiped out by the volcano. "The lava swallowed the houses as if they were made of paper", a neighbour told Efe. So far around 165 homes have been destroyed.

Three weeks from now, if everything goes according to plan, Cumbre Vieja, on the island of La Palma, will be a new geographical feature that will barely exceed a hundred metres in height. It will be the product of the eruption that started last Sunday at around 3.18 p.m GMT and which will most probably continue to expel pyroclastic material and gases for between 1 and 2 months. As the eruption loses intensity, the lava will end up sealing the vents and the crater of the volcanic cone which will appear. We will have to wait a couple of years for the earthquakes to stop completely, and it will not be until then that the ground temperature will be back to normal and wild vegetation will begin to naturally repopulate what the rivers of lava have turned into devastation and desolation. This is the geological rhythm that repeats itself in the Canary Islands, which are of volcanic origin and where the third largest volcano in the world, the Teide, stands.

Slow but unstoppable, the lava from the volcano that has erupted on the island of La Palma is advancing towards the coast and could reach the sea this afternoon, at around 8 p.m. local time. In its path, the river of lava, about six meters high, "literally swallows" everything in its path, as explained by local officials: a hundred houses have been destroyed and the school of Los Campitos, in the municipality of El Paso, has been buried, as well as infrastructure and crops. The volcano is emitting between 6,000 and 9,000 tons of sulfur dioxide a day. So far, some 5,000 people have had to be evacuated due to the eruption on an island of some 80,000 inhabitants.